What comes first - The chicken or the egg?

When the property market is as vibrant as it is at the moment with properties selling at excellent prices, often driven by competitive interest it is understandable to think that you too could sell quickly and for a good price and so it is tempting to hold off marketing your own property until you find a suitable replacement. This approach is fine if you are not dependent on the sale of your existing property to make a purchase, but if you are, you will probably find that you cant sell quite quickly enough in the present climate to compete with buyers who have already sold or who are not dependent on the sale of another property.

If you are like the thousands of other potential buyers looking for properties on line, you need to understand that when a property appears on line, the agent handling that property could well have been instructed 10 days earlier, and will have already being contacting known buyers in advance of it appearing on the property portals. In essence if you then decide to proceed with your interest in a property and put your property on the market at that point, you are already 10 days behind and all things being equal the property your were interested in will likely sell to someone else before you can find a buyer for your property.

This is where the CHICKEN AND THE EGG comes in. You are now thinking that you should put your property on the market in advance of finding a replacement property, but what if you cant find anything? However, you don't want to sell your property and have nowhere to go or have to move in to temporary accommodation, so what should you do? The answer is quite straight forward really. When you instruct an agent to sell your property it is important that the agent understands your situation and what you are trying to achieve so they can set about finding the right buyer for you i.e if you haven't found a property that you are interested in buying the agent needs to find a buyer that is prepared to wait for you to find a property and won't put you under pressure - with this kind of buyer you are now in a perfect position to offer on any property that you like and you are, in turn, able to offer that seller a flexible timescale!

Handled professionally, prospective buyers for your home will understand the terms on which you are prepared to agree a sale to them, and most will be prepared to meet your terms given the lack of available properties at the moment.

If all the people currently thinking about moving were to put their property on the market, then I am sure we would see the market settle down a little. At the moment the people actually in the market (active) are desperate to take advantage of the stamp duty holiday which is why most available properties are being snapped up quickly. However, the people on the outside of the market (dormant) don't have the same level of urgency as they know that they have probably missed the current stamp duty holiday up to £500,000, whilst the smaller stamp duty holiday up to £250,000 which finishes at the end of September isn't a life changing amount of money. Therefore you can see there is something of a disconnect between the dormant and active markets!

If you would like to discuss the marketing of your home and understand how we can make the market work in the best way for you, please feel free to get in touch. Michael Smale or Simon Walker will look after you personally.

All the best.