In this blog:
- Should I accept an offer in September if I want to move by Christmas?
- Should I always accept the highest offer on my house?
- Why do sales fall through after an offer has been accepted?
- What happens if my chain breaks?
Your agent rings. Somebody has offered on your house.
There are a few seconds of relief, and then the question you actually have to answer. Do you take it?
If a second offer is on the table, or you think one might be coming, it’s harder again. And if you’re hoping to be in somewhere new by Christmas, there’s a clock running behind the whole conversation.
Here’s the part that catches most people out. The number you’re being told is the least useful thing about that offer.
Why the person matters more than the price
If Christmas is the deadline in your head, September is the month that decides it. Nobody can promise you a date, but a sale agreed now has a good chance of completing before the year is out, and one agreed in November realistically doesn’t.
Where you land has very little to do with the price you accept. It has almost everything to do with who you accept it from.
Somebody with nothing to sell and their mortgage already arranged can be in your house in a matter of weeks. Somebody with a home to sell and their finances still to sort out can take months. Both of them can offer you exactly the same amount of money, and there is nothing in the offer itself to tell you which one you’ve got.
Your sale isn’t safe yet, and that’s normal
This catches people out, because “sold subject to contract” sounds final. It isn’t. It means a price has been agreed and nothing is legally binding yet. Either of you can walk away, at no cost, right up until contracts are exchanged.
Sales fall through more often than most sellers expect. Usually not because anybody has behaved badly: a mortgage doesn’t come through; a survey turns something up; somebody three doors up your chain, who you’ll never meet, changes their mind about moving at all.
None of that is a reason to be anxious about it. It’s a reason to know as much as you can about your buyer before you say yes, rather than finding out in November.
The first few weeks are the ones to watch
In our experience, if a sale is going to come apart, it usually happens early. The problems that end sales tend to show up in the first month, not the last.
That means the worrying isn’t spread evenly across the months ahead of you. It’s concentrated in the few weeks right after you accept. Get through those and things generally settle down.
What we’ll tell you when we ring
When we call you with an offer, we won’t just give you the number. We’ll tell you about the person behind it, because that’s what you’re actually deciding on.
Whether they can afford it, and how comfortably. A decision in principle is a lender’s written indication of roughly what they’d be willing to lend somebody. It’s a good sign that a buyer is serious and has done some homework, but it isn’t a mortgage offer and it isn’t a guarantee. They also only last somewhere between one and three months, and they aren’t all worth the same, because some lenders check a buyer’s credit properly before issuing one and others go on what the buyer has told them.
Their deposit is worth knowing too. If a lender values your home at less than you’ve agreed to sell it for, it lends against its own figure rather than yours, and your buyer has to find the difference. Somebody with a decent deposit usually has room to do that. Somebody stretched to their limit often doesn’t, and that’s when you get the call asking you to reduce your price.
Who’s underneath them. If your buyer has a home to sell, you’re not really relying on one person, you’re relying on everybody below them. So, we’ll find out whether their sale is agreed, who it’s agreed with, and what’s happening below that. A long chain that somebody has checked all the way down is safer than a short one nobody has looked at.
Whether they’ve got a solicitor yet. Somebody with one already lined up is organised and ready to go. Somebody who hasn’t thought about it will usually add a couple of weeks before anything starts happening, and at this time of year that’s the difference between being in for Christmas and not.
What your survey might turn up. This one we’ll talk to you about before your home goes on the market, rather than after an offer lands. If you already know about the damp patch, the roof or the boiler that’s on its last legs, get a quote for it now. A problem you’ve already priced up is a conversation. The same problem found by a surveyor a month later is a reason for your buyer to walk away.
If your buyer is moving out of London
It’s worth a second question, and not because they’re a worse buyer. They usually arrive with a strong budget, they’re often trading up for space and a garden, and they tend to have made their mind up about the area long before they saw your home.
So, your London buyer can be the strongest buyer you’ve had and the slowest link in your chain at the same time. Their money is real. Their ability to get hold of it on the timescale they’re describing to you sometimes isn’t.
Ask whether their own sale is already agreed, and how long their place has been on the market. If they’ve exchanged, they’re one of the best buyers you’ll ever get. If they haven’t found anybody yet, what you’ve got is a hope rather than a plan.
If something does go wrong
It might not. Most sales get there. But if yours is the one where a lender changes its mind, or a chain breaks several links above you, this is the bit that decides whether you move this year or start again in the spring.
Before you say yes to the highest one
Say one offer comes in noticeably above the others. It’s very tempting, and sometimes it’s the right answer.
But if that buyer falls away six weeks later, you haven’t just lost the extra money. You’ve lost the six weeks. You go back on the market in a worse position than you started, because buyers can see how long your home has been listed and they draw their own conclusions. The next offer is usually lower than the first one was.
Which is why a slightly smaller offer from somebody with nothing to sell, a mortgage arranged and a solicitor waiting is very often worth more to you than the biggest number on the table.
If you’ve got an offer in front of you now
Ring whichever office is nearest you and we’ll go through it with you, even if your home is on the market with somebody else. You’ll get a straight answer about how strong that buyer looks and what we’d want to know before we’d be happy recommending it.
And if you’re still thinking about a move and want to work backwards from being in by Christmas, we can do that with you now. There’s no charge and no obligation either way.
Talk to Homes in Alton, Petersfield or Liphook today.