We are supposed to be moving up to sheffield but for the last 4 months our internet house search has been disappointing.The prices seem to have creeped up and up and to add insult to injury i hear all this about you need to add another 20% onto your offer to get the place.
Please can anyone tell me this is not always the case..Is it certain areas?? Are properties taking long to sell??
Where can you get a house with a good sized garden for less than £150,000 ?
Has anyone up there recently bought a house for very near or less than the asking price???

Thanks for your help
Melanie.x.

Never less... not in recent years anyway.

I've known every house sold (that I have either enquired about or a relative has been bidding on) has gone above the asking price.

Which areas in Sheff you looking?

I live in the Wadsley area (north west) and 3 bed decent semis go for around that price. Lots of them have good gardens and are only 1-2 miles from open countryside ie. Bradfield and the moors yet it is only 15 mins to city centre.Another bonus is the supertram which is in walking distance.

I know two terraces in Woodseats that went for under the asking prices in the last few months but that's unusual for the area.

A lot depends on the estate agents. A colleague of mine recently sold an end town house with one of the larger estate agents in Sheffield. They had just sold an almost identical mid town-house on the same road as his for £115000 (asking price £92k) but put his on the market at £94000. They told him that they were doing this to generate interest in the property and he could expect considerably more. He got £117000.

Unfortunately this sometimes tends to affect estate agents who price more realistically. I've viewed one house a month or two ago and the valuation was clearly about right. Somebody came in expecting all houses to go several thousand over the asking price and slapped £15k over as their first offer!

Bear in mind that the value of a property is whaterver people will pay for it. It pays to regularly ask estate agents about offers on individual properties in the area you're interested in. Even when the property has sold you should be able to find out what the highest discloseable bid was. You'll quickly begin to get an idea about the agent's pricing policy and what other people are actually prepared to pay.

It really depends what area and what the others in your market are. Good schools are an indicator that prices will rise, and if there are family buyers competition may be high. We recently sold our house for £100,000, when it was up for sale with Blundells at the asking price of £84,950. Admittedly I did have to show 46 people round over that weekend, but we had lots of offers in and it was sold in a matter of days. A lot of first time buyers are snapping up houses like mine and bigger semis etc as they're fed up with shelling out to rent when they can pay a little bit more each month and have something to call their own.

Blundells were great for selling, but maybe try a smaller less well known agent for buying who may not push the vendors to hold out for a better offer. Try www.vebra.com which is a national database and the sheffield wing has all agents such as Saxton Mee, Blundells, Haybrook, Jump, Spencers etc on their books. Good luck!

someone on this very forum has been trying to buy a house, Although the house was not in the best area and was very small it still went for 30% higher than the asking price!!! It was cheap to start with but that is still very scarey!
Dooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooomed

I know someone who paid £10,000 under the asking price...but it was a combination of good circumstances (the seller wanted a quick sale as they had a bridging mortgage or some other complication) and the tightness of the buyer (he's a tight sod; but still managed to sell his house round the corner for £10,000 over the asking price...)

We paid the asking price, but that was in 1996!

I bought my house in 1998, and got it for the asking price.

As a vendor, they tell you in a nudge-nudge wink-wink way that they are putting the house on at one price but, ooooh, you can "expect a lot more". As a buyer, they tell you "oh, it's the pressure of people wanting to buy, it's the reputable schools, a house is only worth what people are prepared to pay," etc., etc. They seem to think we were born yesterday, which irritates me!

And this "reputable schools" business is such a con - a school is only as reputable as the people talking about it want it to be. It's all about perception. On a value-added scale, the best school in Sheffield is probably Fir Vale, but you won't get any estate agents referring to it as such. (Silverdale? It isn't that great - it takes kids who are likely to get As and A*s at GCSE anyway and gets them... As and A*s. Big deal. You start to think people only want their children to go to Silverdale so that they don't have to mix with people with Sheffield accents.)

The professional population of Sheffield has begun to outstrip the available property in the areas where white-collar people always lived. Ten years ago, a semi in Fulwood would have been about £60K, well within the reach of, say, two teachers. These days it's three times that, and salaries are not three times as much!

We paid £5000 over for ours, 5 years ago - one other person was chasing it. And we didn't even think Lower Walkley was that sought-after. These "other bidders" are often just friends of the vendors, putting in fake bids to stoke up the price war. (I know it happens, because I know someone who did it!)

Offering high to begin with can work. Get to know the vendor, bypass the agent and ask the vendor outright, "look, how much do we need to offer for you to take this off the market?" But that can backfire, of course; the pound-signs may start to come up in their eyes if they know someone is prepared to make an offer 20% over as their first.

A good question to ask estate agents: "What have similar properties in this area sold for in the past 2 months?" Some of them won't tell you because they are just awkward bu99er$. But it's worth asking.

I paid under the asking price late 2003

i paid 5 grand under the asking price in jan... but i was a first time buyer with no chain with a mortgage ready to go. it was the daughter of an old women who had past away who was selling it and she lived in spain so wanted a quick sale. so there is hope (well more like luck!)

A long time ago for both, but twice I've bought in Sheffield for very close to the asking price. First was a private sale, they advertised it themselves in the paper at a price that reflected what neighbours had sold for recently. Their view was that an agent might have got a little more for the house but the agent's fee would have left them no better off.
Second time was someone who put it on the market rather speculatively at a realistic price (rather than take the agent's advice and under-price), also it needed a bit of modernisation - but only a few £K worth. The agent didn't do well for them (possibly because buyers looked at the price and the agent's name, added 10-20% and decided they'd lose the auction). They'd stopped advertising in the Friday paper long ago. I chanced across the leaflet in the agent's offices about 9 months later - asking price offer accepted immediately.

When selling I argued with the (small) agent about price, they wanted to grossly under-price, I wanted to be realistic. I pointed out that I was the customer and we compromised by setting a price comparable with what similar houses on the same road had fetched recently but still advertised it as "offers around" so as not to dissuade a better bid.

Advice: Try to find out what prices have been achieved for comparable properties near-by. At worst, base estimates on advertised prices plus a margin for the usual auction process and average it across a handful of properties. http://www.upmystreet.com/ can be some help but sample sizes may be too small and they tend to average the cost over too large an area so you need to adjust for factors like school catchment, transport, your impression of the street in question compared with the rest of the area. In any case there is some personal calculation - you may be prepared to pay more to be near your parents or workplace for example.
Don't be afraid of private sales, private ads in the paper, internet house sales sites.
Be aware that the agents lose interest if they can't get a sale in 3 or 4 weeks, they may stop press adverts but they may still have leaflets on display in their shops.
Once you have a good feel for what realistic prices are for the kind of property and area you are looking in then if something looks overpriced once you add the 10%+ "auction" margin don't be put-off, they may have put it on at a realistic price and you might buy for close to the asking price - especially for private sales.

Thank you all , thats a bit more reassuring.
Melanie ..

JUst a quick addendum following some new information. ELR (Eadon Lockwood Riddle) seem to be the one estate agent who will price houses realistically in Sheffield.

One of their staff admitted that other agents under-price to create interest, and actually said to me "There is no point in our getting 65 people to tramp through your house if only 4 of them are going to be able to afford it!" - exactly the point.

Even with ELR, houses have gone for 10% above their estimate, but that compares with 20-30% above with other agents. And I do know people who have had asking-price offers accepted on ELR houses.

Hmmm, I'll bear that in mind.
Just put a final offer in to another Estate Agenton a place, 15% over the asking price. Not exactly in a "fashionable" property area, so moderately hopeful of being in with a chance, far from counting any chickens though, reckon its 50/50.

I've dealt with recently plenty of estate agents recently. Still trying to buy that elusive first property. Bear in mind that it's the buyers who effectively set the price of property rather than the estate agent. There is not much an estate agent can do if several people all fall in love with a property. Additionally many people assume all estage agents price the same way and make offers accordingly, putting in stupidly high offers for reasonably valued houses. Bearing that in mind here's the list.

Blundells: I don't want to comment directly but I wouldn't bother viewing a house unless it was advertised well under our budget(although I know of one house in a well-regarded area that went for under asking in December). Very good at orchestrating bidding wars.

Saxton Mee: Under-valuation to realistic. Kept us informed without obviously trying to orchestrate a price-war.

Winkworth: Under valuation to realistic. Generally communicative but respected non-disclosure when specified.

Reeds Rains: Variable - some on the money, some seem extremely undervalued. Seems reluctant to disclose winning offers.

Halifax: Seemed pretty accutate but were reluctant to disclose most offers.

Baldersons: Seemed undervalued but only one property viewed.

SPS: Under-valued to realistic. Only agent that wrote to confirm our offer had been passed to vendor.

There are a few more but that should give some of you an idea how tired I am of estate agents and why I'd like to arrange a private sale if possible (see this thread http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?s=&threadid=8733).

Don't know if this example is a sign of the estate agents learning or just the way the market's going.

I remember seeing a 4 bed duplex apartment in Norton Lees on the market for about £89k in January. I enquired about it at the time but didn't follow up any further as it was well over the asking price. I've just seen the same property re-advertised with the same estate agent for £115k. Whatever the reason that is some rise!

ive just bought for 138k. 3k over the asking pice. though in the weeks of searching the price over ranged from 5k - 20k typically. sorry to say.

Just saw another one go for the asking price this morning. Vendor wanted a quick sale apparrently. It looked rediculously undervalued too. Mildly annoyed as I was willing to make a substantially higher offer but had been waiting to hear about the outcome of sealed bids on another property before offering on this one.

It's almost enough to make me abandon any sense of ethics and go gazumping and making multiple offers. Still waiting to hear about the sealed bids. Ho hum. Private sales anyone? See above.

Pays to be quick I guess.

we've got a house woopee.

We've lost out many time because we, were naive to the fact that agents were undervaluing properties, we moved from Scotland and were told England works diff.

Anyway we learnt the hard way that in Sheffield its just like Glasgow and houses go for well over.........but we paid the asking price!:thumbsup:
It is in a very nice part of s10 and it was with blundells so we feel that even after all the grief we've been through it was all good in the end.

The problem in sheffield is one of a self-fulfilling prophecy which will only be stopped if buyers realise that without them, houses don't sell and sellers would realise that more £'s offered doesn;t necessarily mean more in your pocket. ....it goes like this.... estate Agents 'underprice', people believe they have to pay more, people believe they will get more, estate agents stop underpricing, people don't realise this so people still believe they have to pay more....etc etc.... What very few people seem to realise is that the Sheffield system DOES NOT WORK.

I moved back to sheffield in january after monitoring prices/houses from June to Sept 03, finally buying a house in Nether Edge at asking price. We told our seller that that was our bid and if they didn't agree to that by the following Friday we would be looking at other houses (we then booked other viewings throught the same estate agent to make the point). like many sellers, ours did not want to get into the 'fake' auction situation (lies, damned lies and ghost viewers)- and we said we wouldn't. The agent still tried to get us to pay more by inventing a bid (when our vendor said no-one else had viewed or offered). They only saw how ludicrous the system they operated was when - to make the point - I 'bid' £50k over asking price on another house we had viewed but (due to 'extreme interest' !?) we were finding it impossible to get a second viewing on (but mysteriously the vendor was available to be delighted with our bid!) at which point I pointed out that I thought they might be!

Having successfully moved, I now notice many houses on the market that had apparantly been sold (after going to sealed bids) last Summer/Autumn but which have now reappeared on the market as the highest bidder had not actually sold their own house.. etc..

Buyers... exercise your power by not playing the silly game the Agents would have you do. Make an offer of wht you think its worth and make your conditions clear - then wait and be prepared to move on. Sellers - stop believing the garbage the agents tell you.. put your house on the market for what you want for it...and sell your house without months of nonsense.

I 'bid' £50k over asking price on another house we had viewed but (due to 'extreme interest' !?) we were finding it impossible to get a second viewing on (but mysteriously the vendor was available to be delighted with our bid!) [/quote[

What did that prove?

[quote]Having successfully moved, I now notice many houses on the market that had apparantly been sold (after going to sealed bids) last Summer/Autumn but which have now reappeared on the market as the highest bidder had not actually sold their own house.. etc..

Not entirely uncommon when a chain is involved, pricing has little to do with it.

[i]Originally posted by grubli I 'bid' £50k over asking price on another house we had viewed but (due to 'extreme interest' !?) we were finding it impossible to get a second viewing on (but mysteriously the vendor was available to be delighted with our bid!) at which point I pointed out that I thought they might be!

Marvellous! I can just imagine the poor soul who really wanted the house upping their bid by several thousand thanks to this 50k in excess 'offer'. Talk about unnecessarily fuelling a price war!

Estate agents generally let vendors know if interested parties have offers outstanding on other properties with them. I'd be less inclined to accept if I knew the potential buyer might pull out due to interest in another property.

i just bought a house for 50k and its like 10 15 mins from the city centre, some prices are ridiclous though

My experience of buying a house 2 years ago left me feeling quite angry really. I had been looking for about 6 months in several areas that were within my price range at the time (~60-70k), and got the shock of my life when the first house i bid for in Hunters Bar was at nearly 20k above the asking price before 'best and final offers'.

So after a while I tried Crookes, Norton Lees / Meersbrook and then finally Hillsborough, where I got my house. It was advertised for 65k, made an offer for 73 and got it. 8k was less over the asking price than I had been used to bidding. I bid over because i was told there were 6 offers on the asking price...(and no one seems to bid under these days) whether this was true or not i don't know (is there actually an honest estate agents??). I didnt get a second viewing (even though I called umpteen times about it...) and when I got the keys I realised in was in a much worse state than I had originally seen.

In the end I spent quite a lot doing it up and moved in 6 months aftert I got the keys. At the time I didnt really know Hillsborough, I just wanted my first home in a nice area. So for a while I was a bit bitter with regards to this estate agent.

But as it turns out, I live in one of the nicest roads in the area and my property has doubled in value in 2 years (even though 3 bed terraced houses tend to go for 100k as asking price the last few houses around my road in the last few months have sold for about 140k...ridiculous!), and it's my own little palace :) I'm really happy where I live and love the area.

i really feel for first time buyers especially, I've been there and done that. I could not afford a house now, which is why i was so eager to buy when I did.

A friend of mine recently bought a house for the exact asking price. She offered the sellers the asking price and asked them to take it off the estate agents and sellit privatly. This seemed to suit them as they got a quick sale and didn't have to pay any agent fees.

I can't believe how much cheaper houses are in Sheffield.I'm living in London at the moment and you can't get a studio flat for less than £120k!

London is the capital, it will always be more expensive there than up north.

That's true.People do get London weighting too,it's not much but it helps.I love it here at the moment.Might visit Sheffield again sometime if i visit my family.

We've just had our house valued by ELR (because of this reply (http://www.sheffieldforum.co.uk/showthread.php?postid=98248#post98248) ) and by Blundells. Surprisingly, Blundells suggested an 'offers around' price £5k higher than ELR. And the price Blundells said the house was worth was just 6 to 9% over the suggested price. So are ELR jumping on the bandwagon, or have Blundells developed a conscience?

I'll report back once the house is sold......

Please Please Please Try Haybrook first.

You'll not be disappointed!