'Guide price £499,950' - what does this mean realistically?

[NoraFatimaBuffet]

So - this seems like a weird price to advertise a house at, given the stamp duty threshold? It's a spacious but not particularly massive house, needs updating, small kitchen, but with a very long garden. In a pleasant small town, but on the edge, next to a looong row of bungalows i.e. there aren't any similar properties nearby to compare it to. I assumed that 'guide price' meant 'this is the lowest price we expect to get', but having read about most houses actually selling for 90-95% of asking, and the difficulties of selling near or at a SD threshold I can't decide if it's worth viewing and putting in a lower offer. It does tick a LOT of boxes (have been looking for more than a year now). Could stretch to a lower offer but definitely not a higher one! House has been on the market for six months and has never been under offer etc afaik. What would you do?

why is it weird? It means 'stay under the £500k'

going over will mean even MORE stamp duty.

house prices and % of asking vary wildly round the country. If they've been on six months with no offer there is either something very wrong with it or it is way over priced.

Thanks - I just assumed 'guide' meant 'minimum'. When I first saw it it did seem overpriced for the size, and similar houses have usually gone v quickly. Not sure how much a massive garden (yet narrow) really adds to a property's value, as the plot is too narrow to squeeze another house on and sell it off.

If it was a minimum it would say 'offers over' not 'guide proce'

If the guide price is just shy of £500k, I would imagine they are looking for around £475k. Obviously this depends on the local market conditions, how keen they are to sell and so on.

Vendors convinced it is worth more than £500,000
Estate agent knows better.

No-one's going to be expecting a higher offer. As 7to25 says I expect it's a warning sign that the vendors will be holding out for that price even though it may not be realistic!

I sold a house as "OIRO" and it went for 20% more than the agent's estimate . It was a bit of a rare buy though, and had a small number of bidders falling over each other.

I think guide price is used for houses where the estate agent isnt really sure what the value is - a one off property, or something needing alot of work. In my experience it can mean the acceptable price is lower than guide, but more often means the price will be more.