House pricing

[InOut2023]

If you were selling a house and wanted 255k for it, would you price it at 260k, offers in region of 260k or offers over 250k?

I’d price it at £260k. Offers over or in region of are just annoying. My EA says people expect to pay asking price these days. Gives you a bit of wiggle room.

the bigger question is whether that’s a reasonable price for your home, but that’s a whole other thread.

2 years ago- i wanted 360 I put it on at 380 so i had room to go down/readjust if there was no interest. I got an asking price offer at 6 weeks so I was pleased!

What you want is totally irrelevant, what’s your house worth?

It entirely depends on the local market and your home. Are you in a buoyant market, and is your home desirable? What do recently sold prices look like? TBH, regardless of that, I’d price assuming that initial offers will come in at at least 10% below asking (if you’re in England or Wales) because the market is set up for negotiation.

I don’t think “offers in region of” as opposed to a set price has any distinction: as above, unless in competitive markets, potential buyers are going to make offers anyway, and some prospective buyers just find the ambiguity enough to put them off. I’d avoid “offers over”: whether it’s the case or not, that just sends a message to me as prospective buyer that the vendor has unrealistic expectations or is going to be difficult in negotiations - and if I can go elsewhere and avoid that, I would.

I dislike offers over, always makes me think the seller will be an arse to deal with.

Have you had it valued OP?

254.99k

Everyone hates offers over. Put it on at 260. You’ll get offers of 230+ but if people want it they’ll offer 250 and you can settle at 255

Guide price £260,000

It says you will accept an offer but you really want as close to £260,000 as possible,

in house sales, £5K is neither here nor there unless you're in a head-to-head with someone else and you're trying to out-bid them. Then £5K is a big deal.

I would price it at 260k as long as the EAs agreed that was the correct price to market it at.

A small amount of haggling room.

I ignored everything that said guide price. I thought that was an auction thing.

Unless it’s not worth that then it will sit around not selling. Or OP refusing offers

Depends on what the market is like in your area for that type of house and how quick you want a sale

We moved in 2022 and where we were selling was a very buoyant market. All asking prices were treated as "offers over" even though that wasn't specified in the advert. We had 6 offers at asking price or over after 1 weekend of viewings and we sold at £20k over the asking price. We were buying in an area that wasn't experiencing th

Sent too soon
We moved to an area that wasn't experiencing a housing bubble and asking prices were a negotiable. We bought for £10k under the asking price

three evaluations

1. 255k - saying offers over 250, thinks it will capture those who set up to 250k on house search. Or guide price 250k and in first line of description, 250-260k.

2. 260k - offers in excess of 260, will drive stronger buyers

3. 260k - guide price

I am not very good at decision making but a sale of 255k would be great.

I’d put it at £275 initially as everyone wants to bargain, rethink after 4-6 weeks if not sold

For that sort of clustering at that level, the EA guesses are probably quite close. In this market I would just guide 250K (not offers over) and hope for a couple of interested buyers who can be led to best and final offers resulting in £255k+.

250k to hope to get a bit higher or 260k to gain some wriggle room, those are the 2 best options @InOut2023

No one wants to pay more than the guide price. If I saw £250 I’d want to negotiate down to £249 at a minimum! Our current house was offers over. We offered under initially and then £1k over but it annoyed us.

I’d go with guide price £260,000

On balance I also would list it at 260k but with a mind to reduce it to 250k within a few weeks if there wasn't much interest.

I disagree, people will absolutely pay more than the marketed value if the property is worth it. Price sensibly to get viewings is, for properties at this level, the way to go, then achieve more. Nothing worse than marketing at a high price and not getting viewings, then reducing it. once reduced, or its sitting around, that's when people will expect to negotiate down.

They did in 2020-2023 but the market is very very different now. Unless you have 2 buyers in a bidding war, no one is offering over.

But you still do sometimes get 2 potential buyers now if the price is reasonable.

Not if it's overpriced though.

They still do now. It’s just more people are over valuing their properties so not getting the interest or bidding because the property isn’t worth what they are asking.

Not necessarily - if it was an Auction property it would say that very clearly in the property brochure or online ad eg Zoopla, RightMove. And there is a filter for Auction properties so you can either include or exclude them from a search.

Guide Price is a very common convention nowadays.