What is the Difference Between Offers Over, Offers Around and Fixed Price?

If you’re looking to buy a property in Scotland you’ll no doubt have noticed that homes are often advertised using a number of different prefixes for the asking price. It can be a little confusing at first but knowing the difference between your “Fixed Price” and “Offers Over” properties is vital in helping you to decide how much to bid.

Here’s a summary of the most frequently used prefixes and what each of them mean.

Offers Over
In a strong seller’s market where demand is exceeding supply you will find that the majority of properties are marketed at Offers Over. At the time of writing this is certainly the case with almost 90% of properties marketed in this way.

When a property is advertised at Offers Over the selling agent will generally, though not always, set the asking price slightly below the Home Report valuation. Interested buyers are being invited to submit offers in excess of this amount. In Scotland we used a ‘closed bid’ system meaning that each bidder does not know the value of any other offers that are submitted.

Marketing a home at Offers Over means that buyers are motivated to submit their best offer if they want to secure the property, especially if there is sufficient interest to allow a closing date to be set.

Fixed Price
When a property is marketed at Fixed Price, the seller is letting prospective buyers know the price that they are hoping to achieve for their property. Although on rare occasions properties marketed at Fixed Price will sell for more than that value, by and large it does set an upper limit on the offers that will be received.

Properties marketed at Fixed Price are attractive to potential buyers because they can have greater certainty over the maximum price that they will have to pay to secure the home. As a result, sellers will typically use this approach if they want to secure a quick sale, or if their home has been on the market for a few weeks without selling.

It should be noted that if someone is selling a property at Fixed Price they are still free to reject an offer that meets the asking price. Most commonly this would happen if the offer that they received was subject to sale (i.e. conditional on the prospective buyer selling their own property).

Offers Around
Using the Offers Around or Offers In The Region Of prefix to market a home was particularly popular between 2008 and 2015 when the property market was quiet but is more seldom seen now.

When a property is marketed in this way it means exactly what it sounds like – that the seller is ultimately hoping to achieve a price that is quite close to the asking price that they set. From the buyer’s perspective it can give them optimism that they can negotiate a price that is slightly lower than the asking price. From the seller’s perspective it puts less of a firm cap on the property’s value than setting a Fixed Price and, if there is a lot of interest in the property, they can aim to use that demand to leverage a higher price for their home.

Deciding How Much to Offer
When you’re deciding how much to offer for a property, the prefix used for the asking price is just one factor to consider. You should also look take into account the Home Report valuation, the length of time that the property has spent on the market, the amount of competing interest in the property, local market conditions and recent selling prices of similar properties, as well as your own circumstances

A good solicitor estate agent will be able to talk you through all of this and help advise you on the right amount to offer for a property that you’re interested in.

If you’re thinking of buying a property and have any questions, please feel free to get in touch on 0131 667 0232 or by emailing property@warnersllp.com and one of our team will be delighted to help you.

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