How much to offer?

[CaitieCat]

We are about to put our house on the market. Looking at potential houses to view on Rightmove and it's all "offers in excess of" and "offers in the region of" and I am not sure where to go in price wise. So if a house is on "in excess of" say £350,000, how much are they likely to be looking for? Because I doubt they're going to accept £351,000 (obviously I wouldn't make an offer like that) but how much is "in excess of" supposed to be? Similarly, "in the region of" would an offer of £345,000 be considered in the region of £350,000, or are they only looking for offers of more than £350,000 too? I can't really remember what we did when bought our first house. I know it is going to be stressful and I hate the idea of second guessing offers or trying to figure out what sellers want etc

the housing market is not good for sellers right now. So “in excess of £350,000” could well be £350,001. And for “in the region of” the 5% under is ok and you could try less.

Imo people don't take too much notice of the 'in excess of' and will just offer what they want to. The market seems very depressed at the moment too.

Helping my parents sell 3 years ago, they still got offers lower than our 'in excess of' price, and as it had been on sale several long months they accepted this. That was what the buyers could afford. (about £10k under).

After a long spell in between owning, where we were in rented, we were lucky enough to be cash buyers last autumn. The asking price was 'offers over £310k', we initially offered £297k and then settled at £300k. It was all we could manage really as we cleared out all our savings etc to get it. I don't THINK the sellers were offended. They had been on the market about 3 months. They'd still made a good profit as the value had gone up a lot since they bought it about 12 years ago.

I always take “OIRO” or “Offers over” to mean “Don’t even think of making any piss-taking offers that are miles under the asking price, as they won’t be accepted”.

The market is so slow though in most (all?) areas. No point in a seller getting all offended if an offer comes in lower than the 'in excess of' price.

A lot of people think that you shouldn't set the price at 'in excess of' £Xk' anyway as it puts people off. Especially at the moment.

I’d offer the price it’s listed at regardless of what it says

I think those OIRO and ‘offers over’ are just punting in a slow market. It depends how much the sellers are motivated to move.

I’ll offer what I feel the house is worth to me. We’re on the market now and house is listed as offers in excess of xxx but we’re prepared to accept the xxx amount with nothing else in excess, we’re just not prepared to accept less as we’re not in a hurry to move but obviously if need be, we will. So it’s worth trying really

Friend of mine has his on for "offers over". When I commented to him that that might be why he's not getting viewings (it's unusual in our market to have them priced like that), he said he would accept the asking price "obviously" (?).

Been on for almost a year now ....

Just ignore the words "offers over" and offer what you think is right. Whether they accept has more to do with how long it's been on and their situation.

Its just a 'fancy' (and silly) way to list an asking price... most houses listed with 'offers over' accept the amount listed or under in the end unless its a hot market (its not).

Thank you so much for all your replies, they've been really helpful to read. We need to move eventually, but we aren't absolutely desperate. There are a few houses that tick our boxes in our price range, but the "in excess of/in the region of" was making me second guess the prices. But one has sold x2 in the last few months and fallen through both times and they've now dropped the price by £20,000. There is another that's been on the market since the end of 2024, no idea why that's not sold as other similar houses of a similar price have all sold round it. So I'm a bit dubious that there is much suitable out there atm anyway. I'll see what happens!

Ignore the wording, it’s pretty meaningless. Just offer what you think it’s worth. ‘Offers
in Excess of £X’ houses very often end up selling for significantly less than £X.

Just ignore that 'OIEO', etc and offer what you are willing to pay, after researching your local market and doing your sums carefully. It sounds as if your market is not moving well/prices are falling, as they are in many areas, so it is probably a buyer's market. Pricing your own property correctly initially will mean you get a better sale price.

Generally it means they’re not willing to accept below that but would accept that. When we did OIEO it was because the market was shit and nobody was offering anything and we were set to lose money on our property. OIEO was the minimum we wanted.

I bought an "offers over" property for under the "offers over" price. I treated it as an ordinary asking price and offered what the property was worth.

Me too.
It's a poor market for sellers in many areas so I'm sure some will be prepared to take lower offers.

It is a buyers market as another poster has said. Another practice at play at the moment is ‘gazundering,’ putting in an offer which is accepted and then reducing it some time later. A friend had this after the building survey threw some things up (fair enough) and then because the buyers ‘didn’t realise how much it would cost to move,’ (tough, should have found out before putting an offer in). She did accept the lower offer because she had had an offer accepted herself on a place that she really wanted.

Surely it depends on how long the house has been on the market for and whether the asking price is realistic. In a time when nothing much is coming up for sale, if this is a new listing it may appeal to more than just you. However, if it has been up for months and not shifted then I would definitely go under asking.

Look at sold prices of similar houses in that area, take an odd amount off, say they want 350,000 and it's been on over a month, offer 324,400 and be prepared to negotiate up. Make your mind up first though what's the top you would be prepared to pay.

Remember a house is only worth what someone else is prepared to pay, not what it's advertised at.

Depends on area, depends on type of house to a large extent?

https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2026-01-20/london-housebuilding-collapses-84-in-a-decade-as-sales-plunge

My daughter and her partner had an offer accepted on their first house purchase before Christmas. It's all chugging along, searches back etc. and they hope to be in end of Feb/beginning of March. The house was on at Fixed Price £385k, offer accepted £374k

When we bought our house it was up for offers over 475. It needed everything doing to it, new kitchen, bathrooms, flooring, some windows so we offered 425, they declined, but accepted 440. Over 475 might have been ok if the kitchen and bathrooms were in good condition! Its only worth what someone is willing to pay.

We bought ours almost ten years ago now and it was a fixer upper so prices don't reflect today, but it was originally on at 350 then 325, then offers over 310 we got it for just over 290. Just look at it look at local comparisons, what needs doing (major not decorating) and make an offer accordingly. The worst they can do is say no, ultimately a house is only worth what someone is willing to pay

There are a couple of houses by me. They've been for sale for 10 and 8 months. Both started with 'in excess of' but then reduced prices 25k or so and both in time removed the in excess of/over.

Any houses I've seen that have been sold with in excess of haven't been sold for over the price anyway. Seems to just be ignored and ends up being sold for less.

I would say "offers in excess of" generally means "don't try and talk us down", so offer asking price and they might well say yes, unless they have some good reason to suspect they might get a better offer. Offers "in the region of" means they might be willing to go lower if they haven't had a better offer.