52 Days to Sell a Property in Haywards Heath.

Whether you are a Haywards Heath landlord looking to liquidate your buy to let investment or a homeowner looking to sell your home, finding a buyer and selling your property can take an annoyingly long time. It is a step-by-step process that can take months and months. In fact, one of the worst parts of the house selling process is the not knowing how long you might be stuck at each step. At the moment, looking at every estate agent in Haywards Heath, independent research shows it is taking on average 52 days from the property coming on the market for it to be sold subject to contract.

But trust me that is just the start of a long journey on the house selling/buying process. The journey is a long one and therefore, in this article, I want to take you through the standard itinerary for each step of the house selling procedure in Haywards Heath.

Step 1 – Find a Buyer

You need to instruct an estate agent (of course we can help you with that) who will talk through a marketing strategy and pricing strategy to enable you to find a buyer that fits your circumstances. 52 days might be the average in Haywards Heath, yet as I have said many times, the Haywards Heath property market is like a fly’s eye, split up into lots of little micro markets.

Looking at that independent research, (which only focused on Haywards Heath), it was interesting to see how the different price bands (i.e. different micro markets) are currently performing, when it comes down to the average number of days it takes to find a buyer for a property in Haywards Heath.

Interestingly, I thought I would see which price band the highest proportion of properties had sold (stc); again – fascinating!

So, now you have a buyer; what next?

There are a variety of distinctive issues at play when selling your property in Haywards Heath, together with the involvement of a wide and varied range of professionals who get involved in that process. That means there is are enormous differences in how long it takes from one property to another. Moving forward to the next steps, these are the average lengths of time it takes for each step to give you some idea of what to expect.

Step 2  - Sort Solicitors (and Mortgage)

Again, something we can point you in the right direction to, but it will take a good few weeks for your buyer to apply and sort their mortgage and for your solicitors to prepare the legal paper work to send to the buyer.

Step 3 – Legal Work and Survey

Once you buyer’s solicitor receives the paperwork from your solicitor, then your buyer’s solicitor applies for local searches from the local authority (to ensure no motorways etc., are going to be built in the back garden!).  These Searches can take a number of weeks to be returned to the buyer solicitors from the council, from which questions will be raised by the buyer’s solicitor to your solicitor (trust me – you don’t see a tenth of the work that goes on behind closed doors to get the sale through to completion). Meanwhile, the surveyor will check the property to ensure it is worth the money and structurally sound. Overall, this step can take between 3 and 6 weeks (sometimes more!).

Step 4 – Exchange of Contracts

Assuming all the mortgage, survey and legal work comes back ok, both the buyer and solicitor sign contracts, the solicitors then perform “Exchange of Contracts”. When contracts are exchanged, this is the first time both buyer and seller are tied in. Before then, they can walk away and you are probably 4 or 5 months down the line from having put up the for sale board – this isn’t a quick process! But hold on; we aren’t there yet!

Step 5 – Completion

Between a week and up to six weeks after exchange of contracts, the buyer solicitor sends the purchase money to the seller’s solicitor, and once that arrives, the keys will be given to the buyer;  phew!

To conclude, all in all, you are looking at a good four, five even six months from putting the for-sale board up to moving out.

If you are thinking of selling your Haywards Heath home or if you are a Haywards Heath landlord, hoping to sell your buy to let property (with tenants in), either way, if you want a chat to ensure you get a decent price with minimal fuss, drop me a message or pick up the phone.

28% Drop in Properties For Sale Today in Haywards Heath Compared to 10 Years Ago.

There is good news for Haywards Heath buy to let landlords as ‘top of the range’ well-presented properties are getting really decent rents compared to a year ago however, this rise in rents is thwarting many potential first time buyers from saving for both a deposit and money for a rainy day. On top of this, there is also a shortage of Haywards Heath homes coming on the market thus adding fuel to the slowdown and affecting not just Haywards Heath first time buyers but also those going up the housing ladder.

Whilst it is true that the Government’s initiatives, targeted at improving the supply of homes built and helping first time buyers obtaining necessary funding, are starting to work (albeit slowly), I also believe that to boost more existing home-owners and their properties onto the market, we as a country, need to see a better focus placed on those looking to downsize (i.e. the mature generation).

If we took away some hurdles to home owners downsizing, such as removing stamp duty for those downsizers (as was done for first time buyers last year), together with encouraging even more first-time buyers with 100% mortgages to buy the smaller properties, this would in turn release more mid-range properties onto the market, which subsequently would encourage more mature homeowners to downsize from their bigger properties to buy those mid-range properties - thus completing the circle.

Looking at the most recent set of data from the Land Registry for Haywards Heath (the RH16 postcode in particular); the figures show the indifferent nature of the current Haywards Heath property market.

Only 368 Haywards Heath (RH16) Homes changed hands in the last 6 months.

Haywards Heath property values and transactions continue to be sluggish, and the monthly peaks and troughs of house prices and properties changing hands doesn’t mask the deficiency of suitable realistically priced property coming onto the Haywards Heath property market, meaning the housing market is slowly becoming inaccessible to some would-be home owners.

Looking at what each property type is selling for in RH16 (note the data from the Land Registry is always 4/5 months behind) makes interesting reading.

One must remember these are the average prices paid, so it only takes a run of a few expensive or cheaper property types (as can be seen with the variance in the Apartments and Terraced in the table) to affect the figures.

Looking at the numbers of properties for sale I looked at my research for early summer 2008, and at that time 617 properties were on the market for sale in Haywards Heath. When I did my research on this article today there are just 446 properties for sale, a drop of 28%.

The Government needs to seriously consider the supply and demand of the UK property market as a whole to ensure it doesn’t seize up. It needs to do that with bold and forward-thinking plans but, in the meantime, people still need a roof over their head, so as local authorities don’t have the cash to build new houses anymore; it’s the job of Haywards Heath landlords to take up the slack.

I must stress though, I have noticed a distinct ‘flight to quality’ by Mid Sussex tenants, who are prepared to pay top dollar for an exceptional home to rent.  If you want to know what tenants are looking for and what type of things you as a Mid Sussex landlord need to do to maximise your rental returns – drop me a line.