According to the Intermediary Magazine this morning, Quarter 3 of 2022 saw the highest level of property transactions falling through in 5 years – a trend we have seen and assisted many of our clients through.
According to the magazine, 90,188 transactions are estimated to have fallen through – an increase on 15.6% on a quarterly basis and a 3.6% increase since the same period in 2021.
The rate is attributed to the chaos that followed the political and global events in September 2022, where lenders pulled out of the market, cost of living crisis came to the forefront (increasing the issues around affordability), and increased moving costs (both in the process and also lender product fees as a result of the Bank of England’s rate hikes).
What can you do to protect yourself?
It is in the interest of all parties in a purchase to ensure that the process goes as smoothly as possible. There are so many factors affecting how easily a transaction goes through and ways of protecting yourself in case the worst happens.
- Get everything ready before you start – Seems obvious, but there is a lot of research to be done before you even get to the point of offering on a property. We will be covering this over on our Facebook Page over the next few days, so make sure you follow us to get the hints and tips!
- If you haven’t sold your property yet, don’t expect to be taken as seriously as a person with no property to sell – ultimately, until you have sold your property you wont be in a position to proceed (unless you have the cash to progress the purchase without the sale moving forwards) – so pushing anyone other than your selling agent is likely to cause friction.
- Wait until you are fully confident you can move forward before committing money to a transaction – Until you have the mortgage offer, you simply aren’t in a position to successfully start the process of buying the house you have offered on. We always recommend holding back on paying for searches, additional surveys and other costs until either a verbal “Ok to go” from the lender, or a mortgage offer is in place. Otherwise you could be spending out on things that go to waste if you are unable to proceed (either because of issues with the mortgage itself, or the lenders valuation coming back low or unsuitable for lending)
- Keep in touch using the right channels – Whilst its tempting to badger everyone involved in the process, there are key people to keep in touch with at different stages.. For example :
- Until you have your mortgage offer, your main contact should be the Mortgage Broker
- Once you have your mortgage offer, the solicitors work can start – so they should be your main contact.
- Once you have the majority of the legal work done (Searches back, enquiries underway or complete), then you can work with the estate agent to get an idea of the completion timescales.
- Keep Calm – Particularly in long chains, it can be a stressful process. Ultimately, nothing is set in stone until everyone in the chain is ready to exchange.
We will be covering some more detail over on Facebook over the next few weeks, so head over and follow us for more information.
In the meantime, we have two helpful guides to First Time Buyers and lots more info in our guide to the process on our homepage at www.mortgages4u.uk