[WhatThe]

ccc, on 17 January 2012 - 02:51 PM, said:

Not sure what the above has to do with what i am saying. All i am saying is if i do decide to buy then i may go a different route to getting the place 'checked out' than is normal. Not really a huge deal imo. Your point re someone scoping for future work is fair enough - but that is the same with many things and as the house would not even belong to me - i doubt it would be a big issue. If you have a problem with your plumbing who do you get in ? A plumber or a surveyor ? So if you want to find out of potential future problems with your plumbing who do you get in ? I just think it sounds like common sense.

Hi ccc -- you might want to think about holding off buying in Edinburgh. My take is that the market here is changing and we will see a sharper fall in the next six months. Here is why:

(1) The Time on the Market is off the charts... I believe that it is taking on average approximately 200 days to sell. This is almost double what it has been last year and is rising.
(2) The referendum is scaring the life out of foreign EURO buyers who were buying into the Edinburgh market as a currency hedge. They will not do this now, too much risk. There was a lot of sales in the New Town in December and I believe this may have been foreign buyers getting their money out of Euros.
(3) There has almost been no sales in the first 2 weeks of January (ok it is a slow time...) but ONLY a couple of sales is unprecedented.

Hang in there.......

[ccc]

WhatThe, on 17 January 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

Hi ccc -- you might want to think about holding off buying in Edinburgh. My take is that the market here is changing and we will see a sharper fall in the next six months. Here is why:

(1) The Time on the Market is off the charts... I believe that it is taking on average approximately 200 days to sell. This is almost double what it has been last year and is rising.
(2) The referendum is scaring the life out of foreign EURO buyers who were buying into the Edinburgh market as a currency hedge. They will not do this now, too much risk. There was a lot of sales in the New Town in December and I believe this may have been foreign buyers getting their money out of Euros.
(3) There has almost been no sales in the first 2 weeks of January (ok it is a slow time...) but ONLY a couple of sales is unprecedented.

Hang in there.......

No interest in buying anytime soon. Just planning ahead for if I do !! Prob another 18 months at the least. See what happens.

Interesting about the foreign buyers. Seen rather a lot of new town places up for sale recently as I am down that way quite a lot. Sort of places that don't come up very often. Moray Place, Circus lane, lots of Fettes Row etc..

Like you I think all the pointers are in the down direction. The only upside is I know a few people who may buy in the next year or two. Similar age to me and managed to save up a lot of money. However these are the exception. Most people I know of my age have not been that lucky to get work that lets them save up a lot of money.

That's about the only upside to the Edinburgh market I can see. Against the downside its not much.

[catmandu]

WhatThe, on 17 January 2012 - 06:01 PM, said:

Hi ccc -- you might want to think about holding off buying in Edinburgh. My take is that the market here is changing and we will see a sharper fall in the next six months. Here is why:

(1) The Time on the Market is off the charts... I believe that it is taking on average approximately 200 days to sell. This is almost double what it has been last year and is rising.
(2) The referendum is scaring the life out of foreign EURO buyers who were buying into the Edinburgh market as a currency hedge. They will not do this now, too much risk. There was a lot of sales in the New Town in December and I believe this may have been foreign buyers getting their money out of Euros.
(3) There has almost been no sales in the first 2 weeks of January (ok it is a slow time...) but ONLY a couple of sales is unprecedented.

Hang in there.......

WhatThe....welcome to the forum.
I'm interested in where you get your stats - particularly time on market and this talk of only a couple of sales this month.

[naptrel]

Gayfield House, East London Street

This upper-end place makes me a bit sad.

It is a spectacular house. For 500k (the price is dropping), it is in a very different league to the run-of-the-half-million Morningside terraced house. Gosh, it's grander than your typical Aston-Martined fancy-schmancy new town pad, too.

But.

While the area is nice, and very central, the house is sandwiched by yuck (offices, schools, warehousey-looking cack) and I'd guess that there are some serious maintenance costs looming. Plus you don't get the basement.

But wouldn't you love to live in a place like this? And when you look at the other stuff available for a similar price, this place is too cheap--it must have some major structural problems. Either that or it's a super-bargain waiting to be snapped up by a canny buyer who can see beyond the fear of overheads.

[Scunnered]

naptrel, on 19 January 2012 - 09:38 AM, said:

Gayfield House, East London Street

This upper-end place makes me a bit sad.

It is a spectacular house. For 500k (the price is dropping), it is in a very different league to the run-of-the-half-million Morningside terraced house. Gosh, it's grander than your typical Aston-Martined fancy-schmancy new town pad, too.

But.

While the area is nice, and very central, the house is sandwiched by yuck (offices, schools, warehousey-looking cack) and I'd guess that there are some serious maintenance costs looming. Plus you don't get the basement.

But wouldn't you love to live in a place like this? And when you look at the other stuff available for a similar price, this place is too cheap--it must have some major structural problems. Either that or it's a super-bargain waiting to be snapped up by a canny buyer who can see beyond the fear of overheads.

That's interesting. I pass Gayfield House now and again and it always looks as if it's somehow been stranded there by mistake. The Telegraph has an article (from 2003) about its history here: http://www.telegraph...ck-of-ages.html . There are some interesting nuggets such as

Quote

In 1825, Edinburgh house prices almost doubled in a year and it was said that plumbers could earn more than surgeons. One by one, mansions such as Gayfield were demolished as their owners cashed in on the New Town dream.

But then, in 1826, the bubble burst. Interest rates were raised and speculators lost their shirts as prices plunged lower every month.

It looks as if most of the nearby houses were demolished for lucrative developments in the New Town, but the owners of Gayfield house didn't cash in and it ended up being left on its own.

£500,000 does seem surprisingly little: the Telegraph article was connected with the house being sold, and they were looking for offers over £495,000 in 2003. It would be interesting to know how much it finally sold for that time. As you say, it looks as if it would be expensive to maintain; it'll presumably be listed or something as well, so you'll have to be careful what you do.

Here it is back when it was in the countryside:

[suggs]

Scunnered, on 19 January 2012 - 12:00 PM, said:

That's interesting. I pass Gayfield House now and again and it always looks as if it's somehow been stranded there by mistake. The Telegraph has an article (from 2003) about its history here: http://www.telegraph...ck-of-ages.html . There are some interesting nuggets such as



It looks as if most of the nearby houses were demolished for lucrative developments in the New Town, but the owners of Gayfield house didn't cash in and it ended up being left on its own.

£500,000 does seem surprisingly little: the Telegraph article was connected with the house being sold, and they were looking for offers over £495,000 in 2003. It would be interesting to know how much it finally sold for that time. As you say, it looks as if it would be expensive to maintain; it'll presumably be listed or something as well, so you'll have to be careful what you do.

Here it is back when it was in the countryside:

The Ponzi Scheme is over renting is the way now anyone buying should be sent to a doctor.

[ccc]

If I wanted to run a hotel - had a spare 700k sitting in my back pocket - that could actually be a good plan. From the floorplan looks like you could get 8 bedrooms (Some small) into that and also have a decent space to live in it for yourself. With its proximity to town, and the way it looks I imagine it would be rammed for a good chunk of the year.

~£1300 per M2.

Thats pretty good value compared to most of Edinburgh. Probably less than your average Gorgie one bedder.

[WhatThe]

catmandu, on 18 January 2012 - 11:03 PM, said:

WhatThe....welcome to the forum.
I'm interested in where you get your stats - particularly time on market and this talk of only a couple of sales this month.

The information is first hand anecdotal from a few EA's (sorry!) - but is backed up by what I found online...

(1) The Time on the Market is off the charts... I believe that it is taking on average approximately 200 days to sell. This is almost double what it has been last year and is rising.

http://www.home.co.u...edinburgh&all=1

(2) The referendum is scaring the life out of foreign EURO buyers who were buying into the Edinburgh market as a currency hedge. They will not do this now, too much risk. There was a lot of sales in the New Town in December and I believe this may have been foreign buyers getting their money out of Euros.

I know a few EURO property investors who have taken Edinburgh off their list.

(3) There has almost been no sales in the first 2 weeks of January (ok it is a slow time...) but ONLY a couple of sales is unprecedented.

This is easy to see from ESPC and Rightmove. There has been a few more sales this week but overall very few.

The times they are a changing...

[TTD]

WhatThe, on 20 January 2012 - 05:50 PM, said:

(3) There has almost been no sales in the first 2 weeks of January (ok it is a slow time...) but ONLY a couple of sales is unprecedented.

This is easy to see from ESPC and Rightmove.

Easy to see.... how? There's no display of 'sold' properties on ESPC that I can see; how did you determine this?