Chain Fixing
In recent months, we have acted as "chain fixers" for many clients and thus decided to dedicate a whole page to it to help explain the process and how we can help you.
As the credit crunch gets worse, and banks don't seem to want to lend money (despite US bailing them out!) many people are struggling to sell their house and even after having it on the market for many months (sometimes in excess of a whole year) and slashing the price to attract a buyer, the sales are falling through, often at the last minute, due to a broken chain.
Very often, there are a number of people in a chain - from the first time buyer at the bottom buying their first house to the retirees at the top who are selling their big family home to downsize into a bungalow.
Many people have to sell their house before they can buy another. Many people who view houses on the market have not yet sold their own house. Once they have sold their house, they are very often part of a much bigger chain and they could lose their new house (or lose their buyer) through no fault of their own.
Due to the credit crunch / tight mortgage market, 1 in 4 chains are breaking down (source NAEA).
The whole chain, which could be half a dozen properties, or more, will break down if anybody in the chain can't get a mortgage or loses their buyer.... or for some other personal reason, e.g. relationship breakup, bereavement, pregnancy, loss of job, etc...
It is just such a fragile thing!
We have seen this dozens of times in the past year. A chain is only as strong as it's weakest link... more often than not, it's the first time buyer at the bottom who can't get a mortgage or who hasn't saved up enough deposit money. However, it has also been some people half-way up the chain (2nd time buyers) who can't get a new mortgage as their financial situation has changed, e.g. change of job, poor credit history, missing one mobile phone payment, or even something as simple as forgetting to register on the electrol roll when they last moved house - it happens every day.
A whole chain of people can break down. Lots of disappointed people. Just one person can cause the whole deck of cards to come crashing down and it's very frustrating.
We can help.
We can step in and fix a broken chain.
If your buyer can't proceed for whatever reason or even if they just decide to pull out on a whim, then we can step in and buy your property from you and solve your problem, enabling you to move on.
Likewise, if your chain breaks down and you find out that it's your buyers buyer who can't proceed, then let us know and we can talk to your buyer to see if we can step in and buy their property to enable them to buy yours.
In a recent case, a local estate agent had 4 properties in a 6 property chain which had broken down. All that hard work and effort was about to go down the toilet because of ONE person - 6 families losing their house - 4 commissions to the agent - etc... so we stepped in and saved the chain. The people that were originally going to buy that property, who were unable to save enough money to pay a deposit, legal fees, moving costs, etc... are now renting the house from us, with an option to purchase anytime within the next 3 years at a fixed price and part of their monthly rent is counting towards their deposit for when they eventually purchase.
(if you're interested in a "rent to own" scheme, please get in contact)
If we can help you fix a broken chain, then please please call us today!
Please call us TODAY for a confidential chat about all the options!
01204 897868