To think ‘guide prices’ and ‘offers over’ are pointless?

[Coffeeandbourbons]

Viewed a lovely house last week, ‘guide price 420-450k’.

Really liked it, put in an offer for 420. Phone call from estate agent, ‘She wants offers over 430, and won’t accept anything less’.

AIBU to think she should’ve just bloody listed for 430? And that guide prices and offers over are just pointless and confusing? Why not just list for the price you want?

Annoying to list a price lower than she would accept, certainly.

Perhaps with a wider range at the lower end, they hope to get more people looking and just hope they hook someone who otherwise wouldn’t have looked, but who might be persuaded to add on an extra £10,000?

Perhaps, I just find it a bit of a ‘mess about’ strategy if so - and I wouldn’t want to prepare my house for a viewing if the viewer might not be able to spend the minimum I wanted!

It's the EA's fault, it's down to their commercial strategy.

It always screams to me 'my property is not worth the asking price but I can't afford to drop it any lower'

Typically these properties have been on the market ages too.

It doesn’t work because it means different things to different estate agents, let alone customers. Foxtons £100k is “This house is worth £80k, we’re marketing it for £100k to see who bites”. Other agencies use a guide price with the expectation that a middle point will be about right. And so on.

We sold our house 2 years ago (Dublin). It was valued at €450 to €475 were advised to put on market for €425 ended up accepting offer at €495. EA suggest lower price to get people through the door after one day of viewing offers were well over the 425. Did feel wrong but it's every EA strategy

I think they should have set prices. We don't haggle over anything else.

Totally agree - if a property is listed at between XX and YY, clearly the seller wants YY but the buyer will want to pay XX... Just put one price!