Agents Using "price Range..." And " From" On Property - Tell Us Anything?

[0q0]

More agents are replacing the price offered with a clause such as "Offers in excess of" and now more recently I'm noting "Price guide £150,000 to £170,000" and "From £180,000" as an example.

I can't make uo my mind as to what this tells us, so throwing it open to the audience!

Does it mean they've been getting low offers so agents trying to put a fence up to protect the price - ie market weak.

Does it mean they've been getting interest sufficient to try to push for the upper end of the guide price, like a tender - ie confidence.

I have never previously seen a guide price except for auctions, nor a from price except on new estates, not old properties.

Would you as a buyer take any notice of a guide price lower value? I don't think I would, I'd haggle hard as low as I could regardless of where I thought prices may be going.

A slight trickle of extra properties seems to be coming on now, will be interesting to see what effect this has - price pressure downwards or snapped up quickly.

TLB

Edited January 23, 2010 by The Last Bear

[0q0]

If I was an EA I would be tempted to use "Offers in excess of £180,000" as I may be sick and tired of relaying the offer of £120,000 to the seller and holding back saying - yes it's only worth 100k and 120k is a fantastic offer why are you so deluded that you think your flat is worth 180k ie 2007 price plus 20%.

Have notices more properties coming on to the market - many others still at 2007 asking prices from last year (and previous years) and they are still sitting there. Not much selling in North London where we are.

Surprised to read that about North London, perhaps the queue of Chelsea tractors for Brent Cross ain't snaking back on to the A406 and M1 quite so much these days.

[judas]

More agents are replacing the price offered with a clause such as "Offers in excess of" and now more recently I'm noting "Price guide £150,000 to £170,000" and "From £180,000" as an example.

I can't make uo my mind as to what this tells us, so throwing it open to the audience!

Does it mean they've been getting low offers so agents trying to put a fence up to protect the price - ie market weak.

Does it mean they've been getting interest sufficient to try to push for the upper end of the guide price, like a tender - ie confidence.

I have never previously seen a guide price except for auctions, nor a from price except on new estates, not old properties.

Would you as a buyer take any notice of a guide price lower value? I don't think I would, I'd haggle hard as low as I could regardless of where I thought prices may be going.

A slight trickle of extra properties seems to be coming on now, will be interesting to see what effect this has - price pressure downwards or snapped up quickly.

TLB

The Last Bear, I think what this tells us, is that, more agents are replacing the price offered with a clause such as "Offers in excess of". I also think it tells us that more recently they are noting "Price guide £150,000 to £170,000" and "From £180,000" (as an example).

[Heading South]

Where a price range is given, my guess is that the higher price is the figure that the seller thinks its worth, the lower price is the agent's valuation. True market value is probably below the lower of the two. The exception might be for highly sought after properties - one property in Sussex that was on the market in the summer for offers over £450K - it needed a shed load of work on it, but sold for around £650K.

[Selling up]

It's certainly a pretty stupid way to do things.

An asking price has a purpose: it tells you a price at which your offer will probably be accepted. Offers below it may or may not be accepted.

"Offers in excess of £180k" implies that an offer of 180k will probably be accepted. Therefore offer less and see if it's accepted.

"Price guide £150k-180k" implies that an offer of 150k will probably be accepted. Therefore offer less and see if it's accepted.

[pie-eater]

It's certainly a pretty stupid way to do things.

An asking price has a purpose: it tells you a price at which your offer will probably be accepted. Offers below it may or may not be accepted.

"Offers in excess of £180k" implies that an offer of 180k will probably be accepted. Therefore offer less and see if it's accepted.

"Price guide £150k-180k" implies that an offer of 150k will probably be accepted. Therefore offer less and see if it's accepted.

All of the houses I have follwed that had the 'offers in excess' label on them sold for under the amount they were asking over.

[0q0]

Where a price range is given, my guess is that the higher price is the figure that the seller thinks its worth, the lower price is the agent's valuation. True market value is probably below the lower of the two. The exception might be for highly sought after properties - one property in Sussex that was on the market in the summer for offers over £450K - it needed a shed load of work on it, but sold for around £650K.

Wow that's quite some amount over - no chance of a mistake there?

All of the houses I have follwed that had the 'offers in excess' label on them sold for under the amount they were asking over.

I'm yet to look into my own list that carefully, I have seen the odd repo going for more than the asking price according to the notice of offer.

[pie-eater]

Wow that's quite some amount over - no chance of a mistake there?

I'm yet to look into my own list that carefully, I have seen the odd repo going for more than the asking price according to the notice of offer.

A place a was semi interested in nearby was up for OIEO £365k. Land reg shows it sold for £322k after it was on the market for months.

It doesn't really matter what they want for it or what game EAs play. They might get the odd sucker to offer what they want, but it's worth what it's worth.

[redmen9]

A friend of ours has a property on the market, she's been trying to sell it for about 4 years on and off now. She has it on at £175k. We asked her, how much would you be willing to accept for it? She says £150k!!! We asked her well why don't you market it at £150k then? Stubborn refusal.

I can't understand the mentality. This house has been a burden on her for many years, she's had to fork out on work several times because of damp etc in trying to keep it in a marketable condition. She's let it out a couple of times but every time she has to spend to make it habitable.

We've suggested she uses the 'offers above' approach just to get people to view but no.

I think people are still sitting on their houses with that optimistic 'I might win the lottery' mentality of believing that there is a potential wealthy buyer out there who will fall in love withe house and offer what's being asked.

Stubborness, ridiculous optimism and greed, that's all I can make of it.

[laurejon]

The price guide is there to stop people coming in with a full market price offer. It affords other potential purchasers the opportunity of placing a higher offer to secure their dream home, and become stakeholders in the great property owning tradition of the UK.

With people queing up to buy a property, its only right that others are allowed to participate and ensure ownership does not become the reserve of those that simply have more time to get their offer in first and close the doors to higher offers.

[helenreed]

There's an agent in my area that for over a year now has only been using 'guide price - from £xxx to £xxx'. The difference in the lower figure to the higher one is sometimes huge, even on the lower priced properties.

I was looking to buy a few months ago and relunctantly viewed some of these properties. I did offer the lower price quoted on two of these properties but was refused.

Within the last two weeks the agent has called me saying the vendors of both properties would now like to consider my offer. Although I have now bought and moved into my house, I very happily did not let on and gave the HPC 'answer' - "Well I would be offering considerably less now so maybe you can relay that to the vendors."