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Offers over in England?

As a Scot who has emigrated to England for family reasons I am now looking for a house to buy. I am going to view one this week which is listed as offers over...Obviously this is common in Scotland and usually means that the final price will be well over the offers over price. Is this the same in England ?
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  • hazyjo
    hazyjo Posts: 15,468
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    Depends. If it's just on the market in a highly sought after area, yep it's likely to go to offers over.

    If it's been on a while, the vendors are likely deluded. But that doesn't mean they'll take an offer. I recently offered around 1-1.5% off a bottom end offers over asking price and they refused. Several weeks later, I gave up.
    2023 wins: *must start comping again!*
  • Natbag
    Natbag Posts: 1,563
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    It does depend on the sellers' situation and sale history. For example, we listed our house, it sold within 2 days for the asking price. The sale fell through due to under-valuation. We re-listed it at the same price but to generate some interest we reduced it about 10 days later by £5k, but stated 'offers over'. A couple of days later we accepted an offer at the reduced price - there was no point negotiating upwards as we risked the same thing happening with the valuation (luckily it went through fine this time).
    Property buying/selling timeline - currently into week 21
    04/12/20: Both properties listed for sale
    11/01/21: Offers accepted on both sales & on our joint purchase
    25/01/21: Identity checks completed, solicitors instructed
    27/01/21: Purchase survey & valuation complete, mortgage offer received 
    05/02/21: Reduction agreed on partner's sale (under-valuation) & on purchase. Mortgage offer amended
    08/02/21: Buyers pack returned to solicitor - sellers packs already returned
    26/02/21: Partner's sale contract signed
    10/03/21: Purchase searches all back
    16/03/21: My sale contract signed
    28/03/21: Purchase enquiries satisfied, Title Report & contracts issued, contracts signed & returned
    11/05/21: Still waiting on final enquiry in the adjoining chain to be resolved. Consent to break the chain granted, instruction to move to exchange given.
    17/05/21: All parties agreed to June 3rd for completion
    27/05/21: Exchanged on my sale only
    28/05/21: ALL EXCHANGED!
    03/06/21: Completion
  • AnotherJoe
    AnotherJoe Posts: 19,622
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    Just to be clear to the OP it does not generally have the same meaning as in Scotland where I understand that means substantially over. In many cases it's just a way if stating this is their bottom line. Often buyers will ignore it anyway. So don't go offering 20% over !
  • ProDave
    ProDave Posts: 3,675
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    Where I am in Scotland, the market is so slow, "offers over" means you will be lucky to get any offer, let alone one above the asking price, and certainly nowhere near the home report valuation price.
  • davidmcn
    davidmcn Posts: 23,596
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    AnotherJoe wrote: »
    Just to be clear to the OP it does not generally have the same meaning as in Scotland where I understand that means substantially over. In many cases it's just a way if stating this is their bottom line. Often buyers will ignore it anyway. So don't go offering 20% over !
    In the post-Home Reports era, the asking price in Scotland is now more usually closer to the expected selling price (since everyone can see the HR valuation upfront). There might be a few hotspots where a closing date pushes the price way up, but it's been a long time since I've seen a ridiculously low o/o price obviously pitched at attracting atttention.
  • theGrinch
    theGrinch Posts: 3,122
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    depends on the listing price versus objective market value versus interest
    "enough is a feast"...old Buddist proverb
  • Scotbot
    Scotbot Posts: 1,421
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    edited 2 October 2017 at 8:23AM
    No. I saw a property at offers over 450 reduced from 465. Clearly over priced told the agent I thought it was worth 425. He put that forward and after a few days it was accepted. Saw another property at offers over 375 which I thought was a fair price and it went for 380

    As a rule of thumb offers over indicates the lowest amount a vendor will accept but it depends on how much interest they have. Unless you are in a hot market offer the amount i.e 375 for offers over 375 and go from there
  • Scotbot
    Scotbot Posts: 1,421
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    davidmcn wrote: »
    In the post-Home Reports era, the asking price in Scotland is now more usually closer to the expected selling price (since everyone can see the HR valuation upfront). There might be a few hotspots where a closing date pushes the price way up, but it's been a long time since I've seen a ridiculously low o/o price obviously pitched at attracting atttention.

    What a great idea I wish England adopted it. Would save a lot of angst for buyers and sellers.
  • agrinnall
    agrinnall Posts: 23,344
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    I was in the same situation as the OP a couple of years ago, the house I bought in England was offers over £170K and I bought it for £167,500.
  • Car1980
    Car1980 Posts: 296
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    Just ignore the phrase and offer what you think it's worth.
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