Buying & selling in Scotland - Estate Agents/offers over/ general confusion!

Hi there

Unfortunately my story may not be the news you wish to hear, but I suppose it's best to here the bad stories too.

Our house has been on the market since October. We were originally on with 1Move. I am slightly annoyed that we didn't sack them sooner than we did. From my experience they are good if the housing market is boyant (sp) and houses are selling themselves, but it isn't at the moment and to be honest I don't think they know what to do. They marketed our house incorrectly at first, then kept advising us to change the price, which we did. Unfortunately they didn't update all the advertisers they use, so our house was on at different prices on different websites. We constantly had to be on there backs and tell them what to do. The staff in their offices seem clueless.

We are now with Corum, who are a totally different kettle of fish and much more professional. I would definately recommend.

As for your valuation, I hate to sound a misery guts, but with the current market, I would go with your lower one. The house across the road from ours sold at £165,000 in September of last year. Our house is nicer and in a better position. We will be lucky if we get £140,000 for ours.

Solicitor wise, I would recommend Anderson Fyfe. I'm not just saying that because it is my H's firm ?, but the two conveyancing partners are very good.

Good luck!

Solicitor wise, I would recommend me, as I am fabulous, natch! But in Inverness so probably not convenient!

Price wise, if you dont want any of the messing about, I would say go for a fixed price. Lately I have even seen houses advertised as 'offers in the region of' which is probably too confusing. Not much is going well over asking price now, and certainly not over the valuation due to the mortgage situation at the moment. We are seeing a lot of houses going at the offers over price, or barely a few percent over, not like the 30-40% they were a year or so ago.

What do you think your house is worth, and which of the valuations were closer? You would possibly be safer to go o/o the lower price.

Thanks, I'm surprised you had the will to live after reading that, let alone reply ?

When I say the lower valuation was peanuts it seriously was and I certainly got the impression that the guy had a developer in mind to make a quick sale and therfore a quick buck for himself but we definitely think the higher valuation was pie in the sky.

I know that the market is on a downturn and offers over realistically may only mean around the 10-15% mark, we're at the lower end of the market for both properties (under £90,000 each).

Fixed price may work on PIL property but not for ours as it could be completely redeveloped and converted into a 2 bed but could be an attractive buy as a one bed needing a bit of upgrading. It's a large tenement in Paisley, we're relying on location, brand new roof and garden and all the other flats being owner occupied, to pull in that little bit extra.

I just don't understand how the valuations can have such a massive stretch i.e the £25k. I've got an idea that the mid valuations are the most realistic as they are a little bit below our ideal but a bit above the absolute bottom we can afford to let it go for.

Gund, 1 Move was one of the ones who spent a lot of time digging at the other agents and pushed the fact that they advertised in lots of different publications etc. 'Blagger' was the word that sprang to mind tbh. Are Anderson Fyfe local to Paisley/Glasgow? My friend is at Patison Sim, I believe they're well thought of but againhave to see if he can take us on.

Shame you're not nearer Petunia, fabulousness is near the top of my list of solicitor requirements! ?

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We sold last year with Allen and Harris, the Helensburgh branch. We had no problems with them and it went smoothly, they kept in touch etc.

Anderson Fyfe are in Glasgow. The office is on Gordon Street above HBOS across from Central Station.

It really is a mine field at the moment. I haope you have better luck than we've had. I take it you are in Renfrewshire? Our house is in Erskine.

We're in Paisley, near Barshaw Park. I'll contact Anderson Fyfe for some details, thanks for that.

Thanks to you too KatT re. Allen & Harris.

x

i used to work for countrywide's conveyancing arm, countrywide have a kind of bollock-biting reputation but they seem to be driven for targets quite hard - on the plus side they'll probably want to sell your house! the conveyancing part, CPL, is expensive, not massively fast (I'm being kind) but if something weird comes up they've seen it a hundred times. having said all this i'm just thinking now I don't think CPL do scottish conveyancing so hey ho.

so yes, depends what you're looking for.

That's really interesting to know Moomoo, whose bollocks would they be trying to bite - mine or the buyers (not that I have any bollocks!)? ? Funnily enough the Countrywide fella was the nicest of the lot and seemed the most confident in what he was saying, in a relaxed way and he grew up in the area. He was the oldest of the lot so maybe that counts for something. I'm meeting him again at PIL's tomorrow to value theirs.

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We went with 1 Move and they were OK with us, I know gund had a sh1t experience tho. We went with them as the other local EA was the property branch of the firm I trained with ? and given my employment ended with me sueing them for sex discrimination I wasn't going to take my money there!

I HATE Slater Hogg, I have always hated dealing with them ? and I wouldn't touch them with a bargepole.

As for solicitors, we used Conveyancing Direct who who I only picked as they were cheap, fully expecting them to be sh1te and that I'd have to breathe down their neck to keep on top of them (I used to do conveyancing so knew I'd be able to if I had to) but they were excellent, really good and very efficient.

The solicitors that own 1 Move, Campbell Sievwright, are twunts.

Edited as posted to soon!

When we moved over 3 years ago, we used Walker Laird solicitors in Paisley. They were very good and always answered my thicko questions promptly. Thy even remembered me when I phoned them a few months ago for advice. Not sure if that's a good thing...

we bought our house through Slater Hogg who we found were shocking!

We sold through 1 Move who were fine and in the GSPC, rightmove etc which we thought was good. We used they're solicitor for conveyancing and had no problems.

We also had countrywide value our property when selling and they valued higher than everyone else but they we looked at it was with an offers over structure you need people through the door and have to think at the offers over price they will be searching on rather than the amount they will pay at the end of the day.

I've probably rambled on and not made any sense!

A

Cheers for the responses.

Roob, I've heard similar about Slater Hogg, not least from two vendors whose porperties we've viewed, the agent was lovely though but I've not heard one good thing about them. It's a shame that I really get a bad vibe from the 1 Move agent, he just came across as a total blag artist, the schedules he left me to look at were full of spelling mistakes and he really didn't seem to know the area at all (they hardly have any Paisley properties on their books). I'll definitely contact Conveyancing Direct, you don't suffer fools gladly so any recopmmendation from you is good enough for me!

Decibelle, I'll email Walker Laird, thanks for that.

Marquis, thanks I'll bare that in mind regarding 1 Move. Countrwide seemed the most sensible, I'm meeting the agent again at the other property this afternoon si I suppose I'll get a better idea then.

I'm getting a better idea of how it all works now and fingers crossed the timing will all work out right and we'll be moving in the near future *daydreaming*

x