Buying a Home

Where to Start

Let’s see what you can afford to buy. This is determined by your income. Lenders generally lend 3 or more times your annual income plus your partners income although higher multipliers are available if you want to borrow less than 100%.

Mortgages up to 125% are available and are very popular with first and second time buyers. You can include all your legal fees and outlays in with the mortgage so that you could buy your home with no savings!

We can check to confirm whether you qualify.

What type of Mortgage should you go for - fixed, capped, tracker, flexible, discounted rate or cashback depends on a number of factors unique to your own situation and how you see the future – there are over 3000 mortgages to choose from!

Use our free, online BudgetPlanner service now.

Finding your Property

There are various sources of property. 91% of Edinburgh properties are sold through the Edinburgh Solicitors Property Centre (ESPC).

Properties are advertised in the ESPC Homepages, on the ESPC web site, Thursday’s Scotsman, Tuesday’s Evening News and in Wednesday’s Scotsman you will find The Edinburgh & Lothians Property Guide.

Estate Agents sell under 9% of properties in the area. Their publication is the Real Homes Guide, which is published every two weeks and is quickly out of date in a hot market.

This web site is constantly updated with new properties. Find Neilsons properties now using the our Property Search.

The ESPC website, www.espc.com is updated on a Tuesday afternoon with all the week’s new properties.

When you've found a property you like

Noting Interest

The first thing we do is note your interest with the Selling Agents. This acts as a holding exercise and the Selling Agents will generally notify us of any developments. If the property is on at a fixed price however they will sell it to the first party to offer the fixed price and any notes of interest are disregarded. You have to move quickly with a fixed price property!

The Offer

The Offer is a legal document containing around 40 clauses and you are offering to buy on those terms. The main clauses which concern you are the price, date of entry (date you get the keys) and what items are to be included in the price. Most Offers nowadays are submitted “subject to survey” so that you don’t have to pay for multiple surveys. If the offer is accepted the surveyor is then instructed to carry out a valuation.

The Survey

There are 3 types of valuation survey available but the cheapest, Scheme 1 Report, is the most popular. This details any visible problems with the property such as dampness, woodworm or dry and wet rot and gives a mortgage valuation. This valuation sets a ceiling on how much you can borrow. A 100% mortgage means 100% of price or valuation - whichever is the lower figure.

Acceptance

If the offer is acceptable the seller’s Solicitor prepares a Letter called a "Qualified Acceptance” which details the terms under which the offer would be acceptable. If those terms are acceptable to you we issue a letter to conclude the contract. These letters which pass between the Solicitors are called Missives, and they constitute your contract for the purchase.

How Neilsons can help you

Free initial Interview

At this meeting we tell you all the do’s & don’ts; the difference between offers over & fixed price and the tactics & tips you need.

You need to know how it all stacks up and if you can afford to proceed, so we give you a BudgetPlan.

BudgetPlan

Available only from Neilsons this comprehensive summary shows you all your costs including: fees, outlays, Insurances and monthly mortgage costs. It also calculates your maximum mortgage and what you can afford to offer for any property.

What to offer

Most Offers are submitted “Subject to survey” so you need an experienced Professional to guide you in what to offer, otherwise you could end up paying too much or offer too little and not get the property.

Neilsons specialise in property sales and purchases - we are the second largest advertiser of properties in the ESPC and all of our Property Advisors, Solicitors and Consultants are experienced experts in their field.

ESPC Link up

Our computers are connected to the ESPC so we can show you past prices for any property in any street, or the going rate for any type of property in a particular area.

Mortgage Advice

Our computers are updated daily with all mortgage products. We can show you the cheapest available mortgage in any class of mortgage you like – even showing the true cost of each product over a number of years. If you’ve got your mortgage sorted out that’s fine – we can show you how it compares with all the others so you can be sure you’re getting the best deal!

Property to sell?

No problem. We will guide you on selling or buying first; show you an ESPC price comparison and our Property Manager will undertake a FREE PRE-SALE VALUATION.