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Original poster

Experiences of buying or selling using "Offers In Excess Of" please

32 replies

mummabubs · 10/02/2021 20:32

Hi all,

Experiences please! DH and I didn't use this approach when selling our house, but we've viewed a house today that we really like which is listed as OIEO £400,000. The house is nice, has some compromises such as 2/4 bedrooms being very small but it has the potential to adapt it to our needs (the original owner was a builder and did a very large but oddly shaped extension which divides the house in an awkward way). Thing is, at that price it's pretty close to the ceiling value of the road, so we wouldn't want to spend much more than what it's on for. We have formally offered £400,000 and the agent replied very promptly saying they will be looking at offers over £400,000 and expect it to go for this. We were one of the first to view as viewings only opened today but he said they have multiple offers on the table that are higher than what we've offered. (I'm not sure how much I buy that but hey ho!) It got me thinking about OIEO, so was the agent implying they'd consider £400,001?? Just seems a silly way of not very clearly stating what you want to achieve when they obviously want some undisclosed amount more. (So why not just list for what you're hoping to achieve??)

Anyhoo, for those who sold using OIEO, would you mind sharing how much you were hoping to achieve above the listed minimum, and similarly for anyone who has bought a property under this pricing system - was your initial offer at or below the listing price and what did you settle on please?

Thanks in advance Smile

OP posts:
Amijustagrump · 10/02/2021 22:34

Ours was up for OIEO 235k, we offered 235.5k, they countered with 238k but I went back with 237k which was accepted! The house had been on 3 days and we were the second to offer. The first had gone in below the OIEO!

PastMyBestBeforeDate · 10/02/2021 22:42

We did OIEO of £x. We had to get that figure to make the numbers work for our onward purchase. It was a realistic price, we wanted at least that and would have accepted that.

Original poster
mummabubs · 10/02/2021 22:42

Thanks @Amijustagrump , your experience gives me some hope! I just don't believe that on the first day of viewings within 2 hours they'd already received multiple offers above the asking price. Just feels like they're trying to pull us into a bidding war already and reminds me why I'm not a fan of estate agents in general! I fully expect they'll reject our initial offer but it would be great as a buyer to know how much above the vendor is hoping to achieve - £5k? £50k? Lord knows!

OP posts:
TDDD333 · 10/02/2021 22:58

@mummabubs I used to work as an estate agent a few years ago and we’re selling now ourselves so I can tell you exactly why it’s listed like this.

It’s to do with the price brackets on Rightmove. When people search using Rightmove, they tend to search with with prices ‘up to £400k’ for example. So if you think your house is worth £410k, by pricing it at £410k you miss out on all the buyers who might be tempted to stretch their budget when they search for properties at £400k or below.

The agent also likes it because they can show more people the house and it makes the seller feel as though the agent is working hard for them. Plus it can encourage bidding wars as people see lots of people viewing and think the property is in high demand.

Apologies, long winded explanation but late night and tired

Itscoldouthere · 10/02/2021 23:02

Personally I hate OIEO but I get why people do it, but obviously they will get some people just offering £500 or £1000 over.
Most do it because they need a certain amount to move on, but as we all know a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay and some people just want too much money.
It’s always tricky in the first few weeks of a property being for sale as you may get multiple offers so it’s hard to know when to accept one.

Amijustagrump · 10/02/2021 23:03

@mummabubs I remember my parents being outraged we had gone in at a whole £500 more than asking, it took me ages to explain what OIEO was going to mean! We were surprised that accepted 237, we were happy to pay 238 but as FTB every penny we saved helped

sst1234 · 10/02/2021 23:20

OP, it means nothing. Serious buyers will offer what they think it’s worth, not in excess of or in the region of. This is just a way of EAs trying to justify their existence. They make things complicated so you feel like they are clever and doing you a great service. Houses sell themselves as long they are priced correctly.

Paulina23 · 10/02/2021 23:48

Do your home work, figure out what’s the going-in rate per square meters in your area and do the math on what it s worth. Frankly, the narrative doesn’t matter, no one top their initial offer by £££ because they see an ambiguous wording.

CausingChaos2 · 10/02/2021 23:51

I wouldn’t hesitate to offer below the OIEO figure. The seller may want offers over X amount but don’t let that push you into paying more than it’s worth to you.

TheGriffle · 10/02/2021 23:54

The house we are purchasing was up for OIEO £179,950, we went in at £175,000 and settled at £177,500. Ours had been on the market about 3 months or so so not brand new to the market like yours.

Bodyrocks80s · 10/02/2021 23:59

[quote TDDD333]@mummabubs I used to work as an estate agent a few years ago and we’re selling now ourselves so I can tell you exactly why it’s listed like this.

It’s to do with the price brackets on Rightmove. When people search using Rightmove, they tend to search with with prices ‘up to £400k’ for example. So if you think your house is worth £410k, by pricing it at £410k you miss out on all the buyers who might be tempted to stretch their budget when they search for properties at £400k or below.

The agent also likes it because they can show more people the house and it makes the seller feel as though the agent is working hard for them. Plus it can encourage bidding wars as people see lots of people viewing and think the property is in high demand.

Apologies, long winded explanation but late night and tired[/quote]
Our agent told us this last week when coming to value our house. They will be listing just under £300k but expect to get more fore it.

Original poster
mummabubs · 11/02/2021 07:36

Thanks for all the replies, apologies I'm on the android app so can't tag anyone! 🤦🏻‍♀️

I do get the Rightmove logic to some degree (interestingly our agent selling our house hates the use of OIEO and guide prices etc). I think the risk for the vendor here is that although we would potentially increase our offer, if we do it would be minimally (ie up to £407k), so when it's unclear what the vendor is actually hoping to achieve it makes it all unnecessarily stressful for us as buyers. We've decided that if (when!) our offer is rejected today we'll ask the agent outright what figure the vendor is hoping to achieve and that way if it's a ridiculously higher price we are unlikely to up our offer as I've no doubt we'd just be used as a springboard to get any others to increase their offers. I think it is worth £400k and perhaps marginally above, but it's definitely approaching the ceiling value of the area at that point... Especially as one of the "bedrooms" is so small they've had to put a custom shaped bed in it so not even big enough for a single bed, so I think marketing it as a 4 bed is a bit cheeky.

OP posts:
HapHap · 11/02/2021 07:40

We advertised ours OIEO to drum up a lot of interest as it made it look under priced, which worked, it went for 20% over the listed price.

I instructed the EA to automatically decline anything less than the 'offers over', which 4 offers were. But 6 or 7 offers were around 5k over and then we had a bidding war.

Still, I wouldn't do it again. It was so stressful for us and the buyers, next time I'll just list it at the price I'm hoping for, nice and simple!

FamilyOfAliens · 11/02/2021 07:46

We’ve just bought a house with a “Guide Price”. We’d never seen this before apart from on auction properties so we didn’t know what to offer and the EA said he couldn’t say what everyone else had offered.

There were 11 offers on the table, most of which were over the guide price and we got the house, even though the EA said ours wasn’t the highest offer. This was because the seller had lived in the house for 76 years and was more keen to get the “right” buyer than the most money. We had been asked to provide a backstory about why we wanted the house and thankfully our story just resonated without the seller.

Not helpful to you OP, just to show it’s not always as straightforward as who offers the most money!

Original poster
mummabubs · 11/02/2021 07:51

I also agree completely that some will list as oieo as it's the minimum they can afford to take to go to their next place. Not sure that's necessarily the case here as the house is being sold with no onward chain, but even so my feeling is that a house is worth what it's worth, which is irrelevant to how much the vendor wants for it! (We had to drop our price in the end and it just meant we had to lower our budget slightly going forward).

OP posts:
Original poster
mummabubs · 11/02/2021 07:58

@Bodyrocks80s (hope that tag worked!) Good luck selling your house :)
Interestingly we sold with Purple Bricks, who I know have a bit of a rep pre Covid for typically selling via open days with the plan of driving up the price and encouraging bidding wars. Our agent actually advised against trying to start bidding wars as what can happen in his experience is that the price gets driven up but then when the top bidder gets to the home valuation stage the amount the mortgage lender values it as is lower and therefore the sale falls through or the buyer has to lower their offer anyway. Why is house buying so blooming complicated!?! 🤣

OP posts:
JackieWeaverFever · 11/02/2021 08:52

That's my experience of open days tbf

On offers in excess we only saw these on old tired homes owned by boomers who decided their house was worth 1m / 1.3m whatever ďespire last being renovated in 1990 and having an awkward layout
I hate OIEO!
Offer what it's worth and ignore the in excess unless you love it.

Our neighbours opposite got massively done on this. In 2017 it was the only house in 3 streets for sale and they needed the roads for schools. they paid 30% more than we did 2 years later for one small double bedroom (6bed vs 5) and a garage (both houses already have off road)
We did not get a bargain either but their vendor wouldn't budge and they needed the house.

Loofah01 · 11/02/2021 09:43

Any house is worth ]to you] what you're willing to pay so I've always thought the OIEO tag to be meaningless. I will always offer what I'm prepared to pay for the house and if it's rejected then so be it.

Original poster
mummabubs · 11/02/2021 10:07

Wise words @Loofah01

OP posts:
Movinghouseatlast · 11/02/2021 10:22

I am.probably going to remarket ours as OIEO when it falls through later today.

The reason is that we got two offers within an hour of it going on the market and it went for £2000 over the asking price. We also had people begging to view it after it was SSTC.

The Estate agent thinks she undervalued it so wants to put it on for more. A way of avoiding people being suspicious of this is to do OIEO.

Original poster
mummabubs · 11/02/2021 17:56

Urgh, I'm sorry but I really strongly dislike estate agents. We have heard nothing back from our offer at all but it's now showing up as sold stc on Rightmove. I asked before we submitted our offer and was told in the case of multiple offers it would go to "best and final submissions", but clearly not. We would have been willing to increase our offer but oh well, their loss. I'm just so annoyed at them not even having the manners to get in touch with us or give us the opportunity to increase before taking it off Rightmove. Grr 🙄

OP posts:
DanceLikeAdamAnt · 11/02/2021 18:05

@Loofah01

Any house is worth ]to you] what you're willing to pay so I've always thought the OIEO tag to be meaningless. I will always offer what I'm prepared to pay for the house and if it's rejected then so be it.
Yes, any fears about offending the vendor are silly. They say no if they dont want to sell at that price. It also gives them 8nformation. Ie, after 3 people have said, the extension is an odd shap and we would need to spend money fixing it, then they know what to work on.
Dogsandbabies · 11/02/2021 18:08

I sold mine as OIEO 395. I ended up accepting 425. I wouldn't have accepted 395 at the beginning of the marketing, only after a few weeks.

If you really want the house you may want to try higher. But if you are willing to lose it, it may serve you well to stick it out.

Dogsandbabies · 11/02/2021 18:08

Oh no! I missed your last update! Sorry

DanceLikeAdamAnt · 11/02/2021 18:10

It sounded like it needed a lot of work.