Property in Edinburgh

Michael D Not Higgins

I'm half considering buying in Edinburgh. I've been here 4 years now and I'm pretty happy. Does anyone know of any resources like they have in Ireland like the Property Price Register, or even some forums on the property market here?

The other thing that's worrying me is my partner is a PhD student on a stipend and I'm wondering if the banks take that as income or not (may have to ask them myself on this one). Also, since I haven't been in the UK too long my credit score is ranked 3/5. I've gotten a credit card recently to try and build more of a credit history but does anyone have experience of the rates they offer if your credit score is low and whether you can explain your lack of credit history in order to influence the rates?

The last thing is while I was watching some property show on TV (one of those ones with Phil Spencer on Channel 4), they were in Edinburgh talking about the Scottish system with offers over, offers going through solicitors, offers being rejected at 20% over (granted it was from 2008). I'd love to hear how it actually works.

razorblunt

I've just bought my first place after being here for 6 years, move in date is a fortnights time!
I don't think the credit score is too important in the overall scheme of things, I had no idea what mine even is! My mortgage advisor was saying stuff like being on an electoral register and updating it is as you've moved through your various addresses is almost a far better step towards being approved.

I'm not too sure about the stipend, I can ask a friend who bought a place when her husband was finishing a PhD, I know she had a monster deposit saved up though so that probably made things easier?

The offers over system is a bit farcical alright but at least it prevents gazumping. Also its worth remembering (I didn't realise this at the time) that you can only get a mortgage up to the the Home Report value, sellers are advised to then put it on the market for ~£10k less than the HR value. That means that anything additional over that price needs to come from our pocket and not from the deposit agreed with your lender as part of the loan to value.

To give an example of the offers over, we bid on a place in Morningside, and went about 24k over HR value, they went to closing date and we were 9th out of 12th! Morningside is being slammed right now for property so we kind of expected that. The pace we bought we only went 5k over HR Value, they were holding out for around 10k more but we sold our offer on the point we're not selling or renting and can move in as soon as they want. It always comes down to the place itself and how long its been on the market some sellers are too proud to move it off the Offers Around structure.

3 different structures are in place:

1. Offers Over, can be anywhere at or over HR value, depending on interest in the property, condition etc, will more than likely go to closing date
2. Offers Around: this tends to be at the same price of HR value so they're hoping to get close to it but they know it might be under too
3. Fixed Price: set at or less than the HR value, you can pretty much be as ballsy as you want with this

Always remember if you're renting currently you've got a strong hand, if you could move out and live with friends, you're even stronger again as you have "no chain" at all.


^^^ That's a bit of a brain dump during my cup of tea break at work!
Let me know if it doesnt make any sense.

Michael D Not Higgins

No that's all great info, cheers. I do remember you saying you were looking in the Bruntsfield/Morningside area in another thread. Congrats on the new home! At the moment the rental market seems to have gone berserk here so I'm glad to have a nice place for a good price with a landlady who pretty much leaves us to ourselves (apart from the annual gas boiler service).

I do have a sizeable lump sum I can use for a deposit but it's in my Irish bank account and would take a massive hit from the exchange to Sterling with the rates as they are right now. I am on the electoral register for the last three years (but not my first year in Edinburgh).

So you're saying there's a Home Report that values the house and they tend to advertise around that mark? (rather than the Irish pie in the sky numbers sometimes)

Fysh

My understanding is that the Home Report value is where your mortgage provider will draw the line- you (or others) can offer above this but must pay for it with separate funding/credit to anything in your mortgage agreement or deposit.

As for Morningside, I had a look at rentals there a while ago and good grief are places there overpriced. I wouldn't mind but you don't even have to move your area focus very far to see prices drop significantly. Madness. Bruntsfield and Marchmont seem to be a bit more reasonable but turning over very quickly, so I guess not being in a chain would be to your advantage.

razorblunt

Exactly Fysh, when it comes to looking at property, if you're really keen then make sure your solicitor conveys the fact you haven't got a chain. If the seller is at the viewing themselves no harm letting them know either, that way they can always follow up with "what about the Irish guy that had no chain, where was his offer?". That's unfortunate about your deposit though, but once you get the cash out and into your UK bank it might be worthwhile giving her a heads up when you're looking to buy, she might agree to move a month rolling contract then. That way you could effectively say you have no chain as realistically it will take 4-8 weeks once your offes is accepted to move in date.

A friend of mine here, turns property around quite quickly for renovations and sometimes keeps them as rentals, he was saying that alot of the time if you make your offer unconditional i.e. you're happy with the place as is (excusing any major defects obviously) and you're 3rd or 4th in the offers you may still end up getting it. Some buyers place unrealistic conditions that the seller has the right to refuse once it goes to closing day.

Yeah Morningside is mental at the moment, Bruntsfield tends to have a higher market value but Morningside surpasses it, not sure why really. Roseburn was a bit of a gamble, we got it for a great price and it's trending in the right direction so all going well, we should make some cash on it in a few years.

If you need a mortgage advisor recommendation let me know, my wife is in the property game so we used a guy that works with her (full disclosure on that!) but I've heard from a couple of folk that the crowd in Tollcros, First Mortgage are very good too.

Michael D Not Higgins

Great thanks. I'm really just feeling out the market at the moment. I probably wouldn't buy until after my girlfriend finishes the PhD since she'll have more money and less complications with explaining the income. Plus there's a wedding on the horizon so that'll take some cash too. Plenty of time for me to do my homework (and keep saving).

razorblunt

Oh the other small details to keep in mind too, is that when you come to seriously looking and you're ready to make an offer make sure you have a Decision in Principal agreed with a lender. Your Advisor will have this sorted out anyway, but I believe its valid for 3 months from when agreed and it's pretty easy to renew provided there's no significant change in details, like a new job or something.
It doesnt mean the mortgage is officially granted but it's 99% of the way there.
It also means your offer will be taken more serious, selling agents hate it when people make an offer without this as it can add a further 2 to 3 weeks to the whole process, so they tend not to accept these over offers being backed up with a DIP.

Only other piece of advice we got from our Advisor is that when the DIPs come back you'll see alot of lenders willing to give you the cash, for a property in Scotland he recommended sticking with a national bank, Halifax, Lloyds, Barclays, HSBC etc. You'll often find English Building Society's there and they can sometimes drag their heels getting paperwork done. He's never seen someone lose a house this way but says they run tight to deadline more often than not.


Best of luck with it though, anything else, just give me a shout, happy to pass on anything I know.

bkehoe

I've just been through the ups and downs of searching in Scotland too, having viewed properties for 6 months in Glasgow and have recently moved in a few weeks ago. I lost around 5 properties at closing dates as well and came to hate them. The market now is very buoyant and if somewhere is desirable then you will end up paying above the home report value it seems. I had to pay above home report for where I finally bought but the seller was after a quick sale and there was only 2 of us bidding and several recent nearby sales showed the ceiling price for the area as a guide so I knew it wouldn't go crazy.

Mortgage Approval in Principle;- Your first step before even viewing in my opinion. Go to a good mortgage broker (I can recommend an excellent one who came very well recommended to me if you wish to PM. She spend an hour explaining the whole purchasing system in Scotland to me at our initial meeting), bring in all your financial information such as payslips, bank statements, details of any loans, etc. They'll then go through current mortgage types and deals available, you can pick a provider and they will do an approval in principle decision with that lender. It doesn't have to be the lander you end up using for your mortgage but it will give you a good idea of your borrowing capacity...this will be a lot higher than is available in Ireland at the moment, one would offer me around 5 times income! There are also several lenders who won't lend in Scotland so a good advisor will know all the ins and outs.
Also worth noting that for the actual mortgage application (not approval in principle), you will be required to show the deposit funds (and the amount extra if you've paid above home report) in your UK bank account. Ideally they will want to see the deposit growing in your bank statements so keeping it all in Ireland might not be the wisest, albeit I did keep a good portion of mine in Euros until I started my search. I used Currencyfair to bring over what I had in Ireland.

Home Reports;- Selling agents are obliged to provide a home report to a legitimate interested party. Many will provide these on their websites, others you just have to drop a quick email to. Sometimes if you have a snoop on a website like onesurvey.org you can find the home report if you know the postcode of the property. I always looked through the home reports before viewing as if there was anything noted in the report I wanted to look at it myself.
The home report will also include a mortgage valuation section, which eliminates the need for you to have a survey completed when getting a mortgage. However, as has also been said earlier, the valuation given here will unfortunately be the limit of what the bank will lend against. So if you've offered 265,000 for a property, home report is 260,000, and you're going in with a 10% deposit you will need to come up with 31,000.

Solicitor;- If you don't have one, get registered with one. They'll want proof of id, current address, etc. You'll need to have one on hand if you do wish to submit an offer at a closing date. You don't need one to make a verbal offer on a property.

Closing dates are the thing I hated most about the whole process. Every time I found somewhere I liked a closing date delayed my search by 1 or 2 weeks as I was waiting to hear if my offer was accepted or not.


Useful Resources;- Rightmove is invaluable. Rightmove also has previous sold prices for the area on its website. They are a bit slow in updating the data though, so you can go directly to the Registers of Scotland (https://www.ros.gov.uk/property-data/house-price-search) website to get the latest (previous 6 months) sales prices for an area. Zoopla is also useful.

Other fees;- Legal fees are probably going to cost around £500, and pay attention to the Land & Buildings Transaction Tax bands. Once you go above 145k you pay tax on the sale price above, and it starts to get expensive above 250k (https://www.revenue.scot/land-buildings-transaction-tax/guidance/calculating-tax-rates-and-bands).

OneColdHand

razorblunt wrote: »

Yeah Morningside is mental at the moment, Bruntsfield tends to have a higher market value but Morningside surpasses it, not sure why really. Roseburn was a bit of a gamble, we got it for a great price and it's trending in the right direction so all going well, we should make some cash on it in a few years.

I don't fully understand the school admissions system here yet, but I think that has something to do with it. I think if an area has a very good schools that tends to push the rent up a bit. Don't know much about the specific schools in Morningside, but I'm sure they're pretty desirable.

I live in Brunstfield (renting) and we were looking to move as we would like a slightly bigger/nicer place, but we just can't justify moving as the rents seem to have increased quite a bit from when we moved in (Feb 2014). Have looked a few places but I'd say we'd be paying £100 a month more for something that would be essentially the same. We even naively looked in the Morningside area as we thought it might be slightly cheaper due to being a bit further outside the city....but no, it definitely wasn't cheaper!

razorblunt

OneColdHand wrote: »

I don't fully understand the school admissions system here yet, but I think that has something to do with it. I think if an area has a very good schools that tends to push the rent up a bit. Don't know much about the specific schools in Morningside, but I'm sure they're pretty desirable.

I live in Brunstfield (renting) and we were looking to move as we would like a slightly bigger/nicer place, but we just can't justify moving as the rents seem to have increased quite a bit from when we moved in (Feb 2014). Have looked a few places but I'd say we'd be paying £100 a month more for something that would be essentially the same. We even naively looked in the Morningside area as we thought it might be slightly cheaper due to being a bit further outside the city....but no, it definitely wasn't cheaper!

I'm in Bruntsfield as well at the minute the prices for flats are pretty much at the level Morningside is getting too i.e. 240-260 for a 2 bed.
Polwarth was a cheaper option for a while too but it seems to have jumped alot too.
Prices seem to fall a little when you head up past the Hermitage bar, you could be talking an 25k difference for a 3 minute walk but that happens everywhere in the city.

I think we got a little lucky to buy where we did for the price, it's grown price has gone up 30-40k in the last 6 years it would seem, should benefit from the rejuvanation of Haymarket too.

Michael D Not Higgins

Anyone know how accurate the selling price info on the likes of zoopla is? I know the property price register in Ireland has some irregularities from time to time.

jimmii

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

Anyone know how accurate the selling price info on the likes of zoopla is? I know the property price register in Ireland has some irregularities from time to time.

Better off using this. Just checked my own purchase from last month and its correct whereas on Zoopla it still just shows at the list price.

Michael D Not Higgins

jimmii wrote: »

Better off using this. Just checked my own purchase from last month and its correct whereas on Zoopla it still just shows at the list price.

Thanks I was aware of this too but it's so user unfriendly compared to the likes of zoopla. Is there anything that uses this database in a more user friendly format?

jimmii

Michael D Not Higgins wrote: »

Thanks I was aware of this too but it's so user unfriendly compared to the likes of zoopla. Is there anything that uses this database in a more user friendly format?

Yeh it's pretty horrible alright! There must be something more user friendly out there somewhere. Did you try the other big property sites like right move?

jimmii

GSPC has it looking slightly better. Its one month in areas so if as long as you're not looking for something from the last few weeks should be ok.

razorblunt

Zoopla got the rate pretty much bang on for the place I bought.
I can check back on the GSPC one in a few weeks see how that fares.

The ROS one is ridiculously hard to use.
I feel stupid!

-EDIT- Got it! Still feel stupid.