Moving home when the market is down
If you are thinking about moving home, but feel unsure about what to do now that prices are falling in many places, I have already expressed my thoughts about what first-time-buyers should do at this time, but what about next-time-buyers? Here are a few things to think about:
When property falls, depending on your circumstances, it can actually be a better time to move upwards. When property falls, it doesn’t just fall by a fixed price, but rather in percentages, which actually mean, the higher the price, the greater the fall in pounds and pence, even though in percentage terms, the figure may be the same as property that is a fraction of the price.
How should you ensure that you do not lose out?
If you are realistic on price, and you have an interested party who wishes to make an offer, the first step, is despite the pressure by your agent to accept, with all the scaremongering that they will invariably bestow upon you, take stock before you accept and if and when you do accept, make it conditional.
“I may be prepared to accept that offer subject to the seller of the property that we are interested in, accepting a similar drop”
Ensure you stand by that!
Here’s an example: You have a property on the market for £500,000 and you are planning to buy a property at £800,000, a ten percent drop on your property equates to £50,000, therefore you should be seeking a similar drop from the seller you are buying from, that is ten percent, which is £80,000.
Now this is where Mr Slippery-Spineless-Invertebrate (your agent) will attempt to guide you to reflect your offer on your desired property in pounds, with something like:
“I will speak to the selling agent and if we can get the sellers to also drop £50,000, then we have a deal”
NO! NO! Just NO!
You are considering a drop of ten percent for your buyers and that is exactly what you require from your sellers, otherwise there will be no sale. You may notice that this will be the time that your agent will actually be honest about the market, well not quite.
As you may all be aware, nearly everyone connected with the property market will not tell you that property is falling, because they have a vested interest, well, they may find the lowest fall there is and highlight that, but now your personal ‘Purveyor of untruths’ will suddenly have a different point of view, something along the lines of:
“Let me be absolutely honest with you, the market is falling quite a lot, if you miss out on this offer, you may not get another anywhere near this for a long, long time!”
Indeed, as a next-time -buyer, another 10% drop would be most welcome, perhaps you should tell your agent that you will wait until they fall further before accepting an offer?
I appreciate that this is a simplistic example and I’m sure that most of you are all too aware, but I just wanted to put it to you in these terms, so that you can focus on negotiating correctly, so that you actually benefit from any fall.
Let’s consider this to be the parable of the lying git.
PS: First-time-buyers, I stand by my word, for the time being, wait!