What does guide price really mean?

[Justonecheese]

If a property is advertised as, for example, guide price £270 - £290k, what does this mean in real terms?

ie would the vendor be expecting offers around the higher end of the guide price or not? Would you be considered as cheeky if you offered below the minimum end (if that is what you thought it was worth)?

I am probably being a bit dense but I don't understand why properties aren't just advertised at a set price.

I don't understand this really, it means they are willing to accept to £270K so why anyone would offer £290K is beyond me! They are just trying to show it's worth this range so you're getting a good deal at the lower end I think.

These seem to be houses which have been on a while and need to shift from what I can tell so I'd probably offer below £270K but I'm cheeky!

I was told by an EA friend that these price ranges are simply done to get more people to view the property. We were interested in a few that had similar ranges and when we asked what the vendors would realistically accept it was always more like the middle or upper end of the range (so in your example £280-290k), never lower.

Ash metalhead-makes sense!

Like you though lightofthemoon, I would be inclined to go in low.

Guess it all depends on how desperate vendor is to sell.

I meant Aaaaah not Ash

they will see what offers they get, and sell for the best they can (or not at all if they have an emotional attachment to some figure). I put up a house last year at OIRO and ended up getting three bids that were about 20% higher, and half a dozen others scattered around the guide.

If there are a number of people interested, they can probably get the potential buyers to bid the price up to some ceiling, whatever the house is "really" worth.

It's much easier to know the likely market value when there are a lot of similar houses in the same area and in comparable conditions changing hands, but the market is probably not doing that now.