The house that sold for £600k OVER the asking price
Modest three-bedroom home is latest to fetch ‘monster’ money amid pandemic property boom
THE property boom sparked by the Covid pandemic has seen a bidding war end with a modest seaside house selling for £600,000 over the asking price.
The astonishing sale in the East Neuk of Fife has seen the desirable area dubbed ‘The Tartan Riviera’.
Rural properties and those on the coast have been in demand since the end of lockdown, as families seek bigger homes away from towns and cities.
Londoners who can work remotely are cashing in on their high-value homes in Hampstead and Chelsea by moving north.
Offers over £1.1 million were sought for The Old Bake House, looking over the beach at Earlsferry, 13 miles from St Andrews.
But when sealed bids were opened last Tuesday, solicitors found that the lowest offer for the threebedroom property was £1.3 million – £200,000 over the asking price.
With 15 notes of interest, it was an offer of £1.7 million which was accepted, 55 per cent above the asking price.
‘The market is in a frenzy,’ said Lindsay Darroch, a partner in property firm Gilson Gray. ‘We saw a boom in Scotland before the banking crash in 2007 but this is even bigger. The heat in the market is more intense than it was then.
‘A lot of “down south” money is coming into Scotland, with buyers looking upon coastal properties as a holiday home, an investment or just a good place to live.
‘They know they can’t buy a onebedroom flat in Knightsbridge for £1 million, so a good-sized house on the beach in Scotland at that price looks cheap to them. They can live here for half of the week and commute to London if they need to.’
The phenomenon was detected by the Bank of Scotland earlier in the summer. Researchers found that house prices in Eyemouth, Berwickshire, had increased by 36 per cent in just 12 months. The average price of a home there leapt from £135,754 in 2020 to £183,997.
A similar boom was seen in North Berwick, East Lothian, where the average house price now stands at £401,590. Graham Blair, mortgages director at Bank of Scotland, said: ‘Scotland’s stunning coastline makes its seaside towns highly desirable, with homebuyers hunting properties in the likes of North Berwick and St Andrews facing a hefty price premium.
‘However, for those prepared to cast their nets a little wider, Scotland still provides great value in comparison to coastal areas in other parts of Britain, with the West Coast in particular offering the benefits of seaside living at a much more affordable price.’ The house sold in Earlsferry was built in the 1940s on the site of a 19th Century bakery.
Harry Maitland, of selling agents Savills, said: ‘The clever redesign and configuration means the incredible views are showcased almost everywhere you look. This makes it a truly enviable property at what is one of Scotland’s most iconic stretches of coastline.’
Other homes in Earlsferry and adjoining Elie have also sold for significant sums this year. One property insider said the Old School House achieved ‘monster, monster’ money and the Old Granary on the beachfront won a legion of admirers when it was put on the market by agents Rettie in the spring.
The penthouse apartment was advertised at offers over £950,000 but sold for £1,050,000 in March. As recently as 2017, it sold for £828,000, a rise of almost a quarter of a million pounds in four years.
Houses in the UK’s priciest property postcode have jumped in value by more than £1million in the last year, figures reveal. Homes in the Norland ward area near Notting Hill in London have soared by 58 per cent during the pandemic, London estate agency Bective said.
Buying a home in any UK city now sets buyers back 8.1 times average local earnings, up from 5.6 a decade ago. Winchester’s homes cost a startling 14 times average incomes.