Moving home in the current market

Moving home has been an intimidating task for many home owners over recent years due to the overwhelming level of uncertainty looming over the UK property market. Despite some recent optimistic press articles, there is no doubt that the UK residential property market is still in a relatively moribund state. There were some signs of a revival in activity in early January, but the pace has slowed since. There are local hotspots which continue to buck the trend, but the large majority of locations have seen a substantial reduction in sales volume in recent years.

Unlike those who need to move or sell their home for perhaps financial or professional reasons, many home owners wanting to move have been deferring proceedings.

Moreover, there has been a reluctance by many vendors to accept that house values across the country have generally declined over the last few years. As a consequence, Garrington continue to see a lack of quality stock coming to the market and when such stock is listed it may not have a realistic price guide given market conditions.

There’s a Catch-22 scenario in place for many homeowners.

Here are a couple of typical example scenarios:-

1. Homeowner “A” wants to move, perhaps upsizing or downsizing, but can’t see anything out there “on the web” to tempt them to put their own property on the market.

If potential buyers of their property don’t know that “A” is thinking of selling, they aren’t motivated to put their property on the market either, and this simply contributes to the lack of overall choice.

2. Homeowner “B” meanwhile, has had their home on the market for 18 months but not received much interest and experienced a complete lack of proceedable buyers. They may have received a couple of speculative (low) offers, but not been inclined to consider them seriously as they have seen nothing on the market that they might want to buy.

In reality, House “A” might be just right for Buyer “B”, but neither party will ever know of each other’s potential interest.

Garrington can offer a fully packaged solution for those home owners who want to get on with their lives. We call this our ‘catalyst’ service, a “one stop shop” combined selling and buying proposition, and are able to offer it with a single contract and a composite fee.

On the selling side, we advise on the right choice of agent, negotiate the selling fee, agree the right guide price for the property along with the agent and our client, manage the agent on behalf of our client, and arrange a switch to an alternative agent if necessary. We manage the whole sales process through to exchange and eventual completion.

On the buying side, we can often source and acquire a property that may be off-market, pre-market or on the private market that our client would never find alone.

We have acted nationwide for a number of clients in this way by initially helping them to sell their property, and then searching for and acquiring their next home.

In the examples above, if “A” approached us we would initially verify that there were potential purchase options available before bringing their property to the market with a suitable selling agent at an appropriate guide price. We would then begin the search for their next property.

If “B” approached us we would initially discuss their asking price, consider changing their selling agent, and then proceed to manage the sales process, before searching for and acquiring their next home.

Overall, we offer a full “end to end” service to allow you to break free and move on.

Want to know more? Call me for a no-obligation discussion on the possibilities in your particular case, and let me explain how our ‘catalyst’ service can work for you:-

Phil Martin, Director Garrington Central England – 01865-582432