Couple put home on the market for 'under' £159,000

ONCE upon a time, the phrase "offers over" was enough to cause sleepless nights for many a home buyer.

Plummeting property prices have seen the phrase all but replaced in the Capital's property market by "offers around" and fixed price deals.

However, that is not enough for one couple who, anxious to shift their home, are offering their flat for sale for "offers under 159,000".

Electrical engineer Duncan Hall and bank worker Laura Jack had the one-bed flat off Willowbrae Road on the market for more than a month without a single inquiry when they came up with the idea.

They have now switched the "offers over 159,000" price tag to "offers under 159,000" and hope it will finally attract a buyer.

Ms Jack bought the flat in 2004 but later moved into Mr Hall's two-bed flat in Woodhall Road, Colinton, and rented her flat out. On getting engaged, they decided to sell both flats and look for a new home.

Mr Hall said: "Because Laura's flat is an executive one-bedroom flat, there's almost no market for it at the moment. For 159,000 you can get a pretty nice two-bed flat in a not-so-nice area, or a not-so-nice two-bed flat.

"We've spoken to ESPC and, at the moment, they don't have a facility to do offers under, but they're interested to see how it goes and they said they might add it to their options.

"For us, it's a matter of doing anything to get people interested, or to make it stand out in any way."

Ms Jack added: "We've got a friend that's in property and had a chat to him. We'd been reading about someone who was selling his country estate and offering a TVR, and someone who offered the estate agent 1200 if they could sell the property, so we started wondering what we could do to make the Edinburgh property market a little bit different."

David Marshall, business analyst for ESPC, said: "Anything that will make your property stand out can be great to generate interest when the market is a bit quiet.

"We've seen the simple cashback offers, or people offering to pay stamp duty, but you also see the more quirky ones where people will pay for the local gym membership, a fishing licence or something."

Mr Marshall added: "Offers under is clearly an unusual one. I would imagine that it will always remain a minority that would do that, simply because the benefit of it diminishes as soon as a lot of people are doing it."