How much should you offer on a house?

The short answer: there is no fixed percentage. A sensible offer is built from what comparable homes have actually sold for nearby — not from the asking price, and not from a rule of thumb like "10% under." In a buyer's market you may have room well below asking; on a genuinely underpriced home you may need to move fast and close to it. The number that matters is the one the evidence supports, and the asking price is not that number.

Below is how to work it out properly — and the three figures every buyer should walk in knowing.

Why the asking price isn't your starting point

The asking price is set by the seller and their estate agent. It is a marketing figure, chosen to attract interest — sometimes deliberately low to spark a bidding war, more often optimistic. It is not an independent assessment of what the house is worth.

It's also a psychological trap. The first number you see anchors every judgement that follows: knock £10,000 off and it feels like a win, even if the home was £30,000 over the odds to begin with. Estate agents understand anchoring perfectly well — it's why the asking price is the first thing you're shown. The way out is to arrive with your own number, built from data, and negotiate from that instead of from theirs.

What actually determines a fair offer

Four things, in roughly this order of importance:

• Comparable sold prices. What have similar homes — same type, same size, same area — actually sold for recently? Not what they were listed at; what changed hands. This is the single strongest signal, and it's public: HM Land Registry records every completed sale in England and Wales.
• Time. Sold prices are historical. A sale from eighteen months ago needs adjusting for how the market has moved since, using the ONS House Price Index for the region. A £290,000 sale in 2023 does not mean £290,000 today.
• How long it's been on the market. A home that's sat unsold for months, or been reduced once already, is telling you something. The seller's position has usually softened, and your offer can reflect that. A property listed last week in a hot area is a different conversation.
• Market conditions. In a buyer's market — more homes than buyers — sellers accept below asking more readily. In a competitive one, discounts shrink or vanish. The national average discount shifts constantly and, more importantly, varies hugely by area, so a headline figure from the news is close to useless for your offer. What counts is the local picture.

How much below asking do people actually offer?

Enough that the question is worth asking, and variable enough that no single number answers it. UK homes are sold by negotiation — the asking price is an invitation to make an offer, not a fixed price — and the gap between asking and sold moves with the market and the specific property.

Rather than reach for a rule of thumb, the reliable approach is to look at the actual asking-to-sold gap for comparable homes in that postcode, and adjust for how long the property in front of you has been listed. That's exactly what turns a nervous guess into a defensible position.

The three numbers to walk in with

Don't think in terms of a single offer. Think in terms of three:

1. Your opening offer — where you start. Low enough to leave room, credible enough not to insult the seller and get ignored. On an overpriced home this can be well under asking; the data justifies it.
2. Your target price — what you'd be genuinely happy to pay, and expect to land near after some back-and-forth.
3. Your walk-away number — the ceiling. The point past which the deal stops making sense, decided calmly in advance, before the emotion of a competitive negotiation makes it for you.

Knowing all three before you make the first call is the difference between negotiating and being negotiated.

Special situations

• It's been on the market a long time. Months unsold, or a price reduction already, usually signals a motivated seller. Your opening offer can be more assertive — the market has already told you their number was too high.
• The price has just been reduced. A reduction is a signal, not the finish line. The home may still be above what comparable sales support. Treat the new price as a fresh asking price and work out your own number from scratch.
• There's competition. Multiple interested buyers compress your room to negotiate — but they don't remove your walk-away number. Bidding wars are precisely where a pre-decided ceiling earns its keep.

The mistakes that cost buyers money

Offering a flat percentage below asking without checking what the home is actually worth. Letting the asking price anchor your sense of a "good deal." Making your best offer first, leaving nothing for the negotiation. Deciding your maximum in the heat of a competitive bid rather than in advance. Every one of these is avoidable with an hour of preparation and the right data.

Work out your number in 60 seconds

HouseOffer builds your offer from the evidence: comparable sold prices from HM Land Registry, adjusted to today's value using the ONS House Price Index, cross-checked against how long the property has been listed. You get an independent view of what the home is worth and a recommended opening offer — free to start, no spreadsheet required.