Agent suggests listing 15k below Home Report valuation - why?

[TirednessOnToast]

I'm in Scotland. Home Report 'walk through' valuation given as 300k. Full report will now be done but assured that the valuation will remain the same.
Agent (established lival) suggests listing at 'offers over' 285k. Why would you advertise at less than value? Does he think it will be hard to shift? How do I phrase that Qu?

Grateful for any thoughts.

How’s the market where you are? It’s awful here?

That’s normal in Scotland.

Pretty standard. A house in my street in Edinburgh was recently offers over £595k, sold for £680k!

Very normal outside of Glasgow and Edinburgh

My XH's home report came out at £225K. It was listed as offers over £225K. He eventually sold for £197K six months later.

Yet my iLs house, in my opinion, was vastly overpriced af O/O £225K as they'd done virtually nothing to if since it was built in 1972. It sold for £235 very quickly.

Value is what someone will pay for it, not what a survey says. Presumably the estate agents know the market and are advising you what they believe it will sell for. If it's 'worth' more then you'll have more than one offer and be able to drive the price up.

Would depend on the market where you live in Scotland and what the market is like for your type of property.

We moved about 3 years ago, in West Aberdeenshire. We advertised it as less than Home Report to get viewings. It sold for 5% over, which is pretty good where I am.

But the agent works for you, so if you think that’s too low, ask them to advertise nearer valuation - say £290k.

Good luck! Its such a faff selling houses.

It is standard - everyone will see the home report and valuation, so asking for offers over what everyone can see is the market value of the property will just annoy buyers. Standard to show value and have offers over as a value below that to try and drum up interest and encourage people to put in offers and, if at closing date due to interest, get more rhan thw value.

When we sold a few years ago, our agent put it on at offers over the value. I was furious. We had two viewings, and no serious interest. After six weeks we forced them to drop the price to £5k under valuation (which at that time was standard for the town we were in, and was what we had said we wanted it on at) and got another handful of viewings and eventually sold for the value.

If you need a specific price, tell the agent not to settle for offers less than that. You could always try for fixed price if you are nervous abkut reaching it. But at the end of the day, and in this market, you cannot bank in getting the valuation (unless in v popular area or where market is buoyant) but use the offers over price as what you will sell for. (I am cautious having been burnt by the idiot agents we had.)

Thanks- helpful. It's a big sandstone house, but on a busy road and rather 'tired' (like me!)
The biggest selling point is the outstanding High School in the village. So it sound like the agent thinks 285k is realistic in the circs?

@OotontheRandanvery helpful - thank you!

In Edinburgh I’ve always seen the offer over to be lower than the valuation. As others have said it’s to get more interest and ensure it shows up in people’s searches if they put a limit on their search just below the valuation amount

It's often about search criteria on rightmove etc, so better to market below a round number like 300k than above.
Have you been monitoring sold prices nearby? Where I am houses generally go to a closing date and sell for at least 25% over the home report price.