Houses advertised at offers in excess of x

AskAsk

RHemmings said:

NervyBuyer said:

I have found that properties advertised that way tend to stay on the market when others similar are selling fast. In one case I did go into the agent and ask (as I hoped there might be some flexibility given how long it had been on the market) and the agent rather surprisingly gave me a long history of all the offers the seller had turned down. I have steered clear of such properties because it feels as if the vendor isn't that serious about selling and will stubbornly hold out for what they think it's worth.

When I see 'offers over' a price that isn't low, I immediately think that the seller quite possibly has an unrealistic view of what their house is worth. And I wonder (no more than that) if they're still expecting the previous, higher, price. 

I'd like to hear from any sellers who have used 'offers over' what led them to make that choice. And, if it was the EA that suggested it. And if so, what the discussion was. 

We hear a lot from people who offer on 'offers over' properties - often offering less than the headline figure and sometimes having that accepted. We rarely hear from the other side of the sale. 

offers over are often used by EA as a bait offer to attract interest.  it will alert people looking for a property up to that level on rightmove and who may be prepared to go higher, or to create a lot of viewings so people see there is competition and start a bidding war.

i had a house on sale recently where the agent said we should put it as offers over 500k, i didn't like this idea so i got him to agree to put it at 515k

the house got sold for 510k but the sale fell over so it was put back on the market but there wasn't much interest.  so i said to him, let's drop the price to 500k and so he went to his original suggestion of offers over 500k and it attracted lots of viewings because now anyone looking up to 500k will get alerts.  there was a price war and so i ended up getting 510k again.

so whatever tricks these EA use, it works because they know how people think.

Olinda99

As a seller I used offers over (rather than a fixed price) to give me flexibility to accept or reject offers that are made. 

poseidon1

Pat38493 said:

Bit of an odd one, but is there any general accepted etiquette on dealing with houses that are priced at “offers in excess of”.  If it says £500K for example, is it understood that you should offer at least £10K more or suchlike and £500K is an insulting offer?

Just wondering as normally, if the price is X, I would start by offering x minus a few percent and then go from there.

Not sure what to do now that I am seeing a lot of these “offers in excess” advertisements.

Example - we put in an offer on a house at the price advertised, and a few hours later we got a call that they have now accepted an offer at a “much higher price” without even asking if we wanted to counter bid (not sure we would have anyway as our research led us to believe that the price was close to the ceiling for that street).

Sadly in Scotland that  is the established norm, and means one inevitably finds oneself in a blind auction with only the home buyer's report valuation ( supplied by the vendor) , as a guide as to what level one should be bidding.

IAMIAM

Just Priced - Normal Seller, Negotiate as you see fit

Offers Over - Arrogant Seller, On rightmove daily for years and years, thinks they are more experienced than a valuer, bank and estage agent combined.

Fixed Price - Seller who wants no offers and has no time for waffle. 

What I cannot stand is a poor advert, no details of service charge, lease etc etc. Why waste my time, I havn't got time to contact you.

Pat38493

Thanks for the hints everybody this is really helpful.  Weirdly the house that we had put an offer at the OIEO asking price, I can see an argument that it was actually under priced and I think it went very quickly for a higher offer.

On the other hand there is another very similar house 100m away with the same headline price of OIEO £600K which has also been done up very well to EA ready state and is available vacant possession.  It’s not as big as the one we offered on, so either that one was under priced or this one is over priced.  Friend I know who used to live on the same street says he thinks it’s a fair price.