Guide price vs asking price - is there any difference?

[coolplant]

I'm looking at making an offer on a property and have just noticed it's listed with a "guide price" rather than an "asking price". There's no range, it's just a guide price of £x. The house has only been on the market for two days.

The local EA website (Knight Frank) has a fairly even split between guide and asking price. If they're using both terms, I'd guess they mean different things.

I've read very mixed things about the difference in terminology. Some articles are saying guide price means it's open to negotiation, whereas others suggest it refers to the minimum amount a seller is willing to accept.

Is there really any difference in meaning between the two terms?

My recent experience of guide prices is that they expect it to go way above perhaps to sealed bids. Two properties I have been looking at recently have gone for 20% and 40%!!! over guide

Guide price usually means they are hoping for more in my experience. Slightly warmer wording than offers in excess.

Thank you both! The guide price is near the top end of my budget so I could really only go 10-15k over, and I'd (obviously) prefer not to. 40% over guide is insane!!

I think I'll offer the guide price and see what happens. I have a few reservations about the house, although nothing better seems to be on the market at the moment, so if it doesn't work out, well then it wasn't meant to be.

I'm just about to market my property and I too have been a bit confused about Guide Price terminology. It wasn't a thing when we bought almost 20 years ago.

My EA valued the house between 220-230k and said they'd put it on as Guide Price 220k but with the hope that offers will come in for at least that amount.

Agree its confusing though!

Guide seems like they expect it to attract offers above the advertised price. It also helps with placing your property higher in search results on Zoopla / Rightmove if the lower number is a “round” figure. So if your property is valued at £285k, the EA might suggest marketing it with a guide of £275k-£300k so that not only will you attract interest, you’ll wind up on the first page of results, because most of the site search drop down lists default in £25k increments (or £50k and £100k at the higher end of the market). If you listed it at £285k, you’d wind up lower down the results list, because most people aren’t plugging £285k into search field.

It worked in my case, I wound up selling within a few days at close to what the agent valued it at (I got three agents to value and I went with the highest - I know most advice says to go with the middle valuation but it was bang on in this case). I probably could have got an offer at the higher end of the guide, but I wanted to move quickly.