Estate Agent Guide Prices and Rightmove

shiraz99

The estate agents in my area, and the one I've gone for, like to take the Guide price approach to listing a property at the moment, their reasoning being that as Rightmove increase their search bracket to £25K on properties over £300K if you have a guide price this will allow more people to see your listing than would do if you had a traditional asking price somewhere within the middle of the search price bracket. For example, I want a minimum £330k for my house but the EA want to list it with a guide of £325k to £350k so that my house will be visible to anyone looking at up to £325k as well as those with a max of £350k. I can understand why they want to do this, particularly as the market is a bit slow at the moment, but clearly I'd run the risk of getting offers in at the low level and being pressured into accepting this.

My feeling is that it's easier to negotiate down to an agreed price rather than negotiate up from a lower offer so I don't know whether to go for the guide approach, list at offers over £330K or place an asking of £340k with the knowledge that I may have to accept a slightly lower offer.

Thoughts?

mi-key

No harm in putting it on for £340K and seeing if you get any offers or interest ( you may even get someone who loves it and offers the asking price). I always think the guide prices thing is a bit too vague. If it says the seller wants £325K to £350K why would anyone offer more than £325K ? 

MFWannabe

mi-key said:

No harm in putting it on for £340K and seeing if you get any offers or interest ( you may even get someone who loves it and offers the asking price). I always think the guide prices thing is a bit too vague. If it says the seller wants £325K to £350K why would anyone offer more than £325K ? 

Totally agree with this 

GDB2222

The snag with pitching too high is that you put off buyers when you first list.

There’s a thread where people say that they sort RM to show the newest properties first. So, even if you do drop the price later, the buyers may not notice.

Emily_Joy

GDB2222 said:

The snag with pitching too high is that you put off buyers when you first list.  There’s a thread where people say that they sort RM to show the newest properties first. So, even if you do drop the price later, the buyers may not notice.

This is not true. Once the price is reduced the property jumps to the top of the list.

shiraz99

My concern for pitching the price too high is if I then have to reduce it it shows up as Reduced on RM, doesn't this sort of put people off, ie, it's not a good look, or is that just what the EA wants me to think.

mi-key

shiraz99 said:

My concern for pitching the price too high is if I then have to reduce it it shows up as Reduced on RM, doesn't this sort of put people off, ie, it's not a good look, or is that just what the EA wants me to think.

Or it could have the opposite effect, same way people will buy things in shops if they seem them as reduced as some people love to think they are getting a bargain

GDB2222

Emily_Joy said:

GDB2222 said:

The snag with pitching too high is that you put off buyers when you first list.  There’s a thread where people say that they sort RM to show the newest properties first. So, even if you do drop the price later, the buyers may not notice.

This is not true. Once the price is reduced the property jumps to the top of the list.

I think it has to be a very substantial decrease for that to happen? Would £10k do it?

https://hub.rightmove.co.uk/5-things-every-agent-on-rightmove-needs-to-know/

This says 2% for the instant alert emails, but doesn’t mention the new list ordering. 

Emily_Joy

GDB2222 said:

I think it has to be a very substantial decrease for that to happen? Would £10k do it?
https://hub.rightmove.co.uk/5-things-every-agent-on-rightmove-needs-to-know/
This says 2% for the instant alert emails, but doesn’t mention the new list ordering. 

Based on local listings: 395 --> 384, 365 ---> 350, 475 ---> 450 did it.