Offers Over - does this literally men what it says?

[DanceMonkey19]

Viewing a house next week which instead of a guide price is 'offers over' £x amount. It's been for sale for a while and they have reduced the offers over amount. Does this literally mean not to bother offering the £x amount? Or maybe like just £1k over? Obviously I completely understand the seller wanting to maximise the sale but equally we don't want to offer more than we have to! We'd be happy to pay the amount but certainly not much more 🤔

Well, our offer is in! Waiting to hear back 😬

"Offers over" is such a ridiculous thing but common in Scotland

We once looked at a house that was offers over 140K but the survey valued it at 135K so that's what we offered/ The guy said no and kept it on the market for another 2 years when he finally sold it for 141.01K!

Houses around me are currently going for 10 to 15% above the asking price.

Ours too!! Good luck!

Update???

We just had an offer under the OIEO accepted. Took a fair bit of negotiation, but the amount was unreasonable (and the agents knew it). Do your research on the local market and go from there.

It's sooo unclear what it means. I've seen places where you can get reports that tell you how much over asking price homes tend to sell for. BidKnowledge is one.

DS tried an offer below the OIEO price, it was rejected and he wasn't surprised as the house had already had a reduction. Offered the exact amount rather than in excess of and it was accepted. Always worth a try going under but it probably needs to be relatively close in most cases.

Is it possible that you just can't afford the house you want? You needing to spend £X on a house you love doesn't mean your house is worth £X amount; they're two completely different things, albeit I realise lots of people do this.

When I sold my last house, it went on at “offers over”. This was because this was the absolute minimum I was prepared to accept, but was about £50k less than the price of the house in perfect condition (ours was quite tired).
We accepted an offer which was £5k over the “offers over” price.

I think it means,

1. The Estate Agent haven't got a clue, or
2. The Owners have insisted it's what they want with no regard to what it is actually worth.

I tend to assume it’s an EA thing as well - it’s noticeable locally that one certain agent has all of their properties on as “Offers in excess of”. Presumably they think it sounds more aspirational. Their asking prices aren’t particularly low, so I expect they get plenty of offers under.

I think if a house with an offers over price has already been reduced it does change things a bit! It seems aspirational, as if they’re hoping to get several offers and have a best offer to go with. Once they’ve had to reduce, it’s clear perhaps that that isn’t going to happen. Hence, on a reduced one, I’d offer cautiously and certainly be ok with offering under. Depends how long on market too.

Scotland is completely different to this.