Sell house at offers above or higher asking price?

imavillan

Hi,
I am about to put my house on the market and i've had the valuation the the estate agents.
One is saying the traditional ask a higher price and then accept a lower offer and another one is saying to achieve the price i want to ask for offers above.
I fully understand the higher asking price and somebody comes in with a lower offer, you either accept or reject. Its the standard and everybody likes to think they are getting a bargain.
Its the asking for offers above i am struggling with. The EA has said that there is a better chance of getting a higher offer. You start at the lowest you would expect and then its up to the EA to walk them up above the price.
Has anybody had any experience of selling there house at the offers above strategy? Did/does this work? Its a bit alien to me and i'm unsure as to which strategy to adopt.

Thanks

pinkteapot

Go with the higher price. Search on here - 'offers over' is almost universally hated by buyers. Usually it signals an overpriced house where the EA was desperate to get it into a lower search category on Rightmove. I don't think I've ever even viewed a house on at 'offers over'. 

Reading between the lines, both EAs are saying you're not going to get the price you want. What price did they say you'd achieve (not what would they market it at) and how much more than that are you wanting?

p00hsticks

I think a lot of people on this board say that they don't like 'offers over' pricing and would tend not to view properties priced that way. I think I'm with them - I certainly wouldn't want to offer much more than an 'offers over' price. 

lisyloo

As a buyer I wouldn't like the offers above. Seems a bit like game playing to me and I’d feel I was being played.
id go for the standard way. As you say people feel they are in control a little offering below even though everyone knows prices are slightly inflated. I’d be far for comfortable with that.
ive had jewellers and bike dealers say “make me an offer” before and I’ve just walked away. Maybe it’s just me, but I wouldn’t think everyone was comfortable with it.

george4064

I agree with the previous posters, go with the traditional way and stay clear of 'Offers Over' pricing strategy.
Good luck!

iampetesmith

The other thing to remember is mortgage valuations. If the price is too high, you'll find that when mortgage companies survey the property they won't lend that amount to buyers if they don't think it's worth that much. These down-valuations are more common now and it happened to us, they valued it at £5k lower that what we offered and we had to renegotiate the price as we didn't have a spare £5k to put down with the deposit.

lees80

We're just starting to plan our move. House going on the market next couple of weeks. I wouldn't advertise it as 'offers over' and I wouldn't entertain viewing any advertised that way either. 

SameOldRoundabout

Our house went on as offers over. I wouldn’t have chosen it as standard, but we were in a situation where our house was by far the biggest and nicest for the money in the whole city, but it was way over the area average for those reasons. We put a lot of work into it and it was a bargain even at that price, if it’d been a mile away it would have been worth a lot lot more. Anyway, in order to make our onward purchase we had a minimum figure, and the agent advised using that figure for offers over. It had a lot of interest, 14 viewings on the first day and 5 offers over asking price the next day. 

However, if it wasn’t such a unique situation and was a bit more cookie cutter I’d always say price higher as standard. 

imavillan

Really appreciate the responses. They all make sense and point towards the traditional strategy.
I obviously want to achieve a certain price and feel theres probably a better chance of getting this with the traditional route.

I'll be on to the EA on Monday to instruct the listing.

Sachs

I sold a 2 bed terraced house at offer over £130k. This is because it was worth £130-£135k , I would take £130k and I wanted it sold.
Another estate agent said I should market it for Asking Price £145k. I told him to jog on and stop wasting my time.
I sold it for £134k a couple of weeks in.