Questions to ask your quick home buyer

What is a quick home buyer?

Although individuals might have the funds to make you a fast cash offer on your house or flat, a quick home buyer is typically a company that specialises in making homeowners very swift and typically market-competitive purchases of properties regardless of their shape or size.
Quick buyers are described as such because these companies have the money they need upfront to purchase properties right away. They don’t have to wait for potentially many weeks or even months to first get approval for a mortgage to afford buying your house. This cuts the typical selling timeline down to just a few weeks, making it often the swiftest way to sell a home.

These companies are also experts at making competitive and fast offers to purchase practically any type of home, no matter its age, condition, location, shape, size or type. And you’ll still get a speedy and fair offer regardless of any problems like structural damage or legal disputes.

As you’ll learn in this guide, there are a number of benefits of selling using this method, including the speedy timeline. Legitimate quick buyers will also never charge you any fees when buying your house or flat, which helps with reducing your total selling expenses.

What is the process of selling my flat or house to a quick buyer?

Selling a house, flat or any other type of home to a quick buyer like LDN Properties is a stress-free, no-hassle and straightforward process that will only take a handful of weeks, and with the added benefit of not charging you any commission, which helps to lower your costs.

It starts when you call the company and tell them that you want to sell your home. Within the first hour of talking with the quick buyer, you should receive a free, no-obligation offer for selling your home. There is no pressure to immediately decide on whether to accept it, as you’ll have a week to think about it.

If you do accept the initial offer, a representative from the quick buyer will then visit your property so that they can assess the interior and exterior before the company makes a final offer. This is the only viewing that you will need to agree to when selling this way, compared to possibly dozens or more viewings if you try to sell with an auctioneer or an estate agent.

And then if you agree to the final offer, the quick buyer will move swiftly with your solicitor or other legal representative to complete all of the necessary documents and other steps in order to finalise the purchase of your home. The entire timeline from start to finish should only be a few short weeks, and this includes exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds.

What are the benefits are using a quick home buyer?

There are several perks of using a quick home buyer for your property, primarily the fact that you can typically secure a very fast sale. If you need to sell your home in a hurry, whether for financial reasons or any other issues, then this can be an ideal option.

Working with a quick home buying company also lets you avoid the fees that you would otherwise have to pay if selling through an estate agent or auctioneer. That means you get to keep the total sale value without having to subtract any expenses.

Another great reason to sell to a quick buyer is that they are open to buying many different types of property, even non-standard construction homes that might otherwise be difficult to sell through the traditional route of an estate agent or at auction.

It’s also a very stress-free process because the buyer will typically handle most of the complicated legal paperwork and other hurdles involved with selling your home.

Are there any drawbacks with using a quick home buyer?

Although selling to a property buying company is usually a simple and swift process with no hassle for the homeowner, there are a few potential drawbacks.

Some less-reputable quick buyers might give you a lower offer than your house is actually worth, so be sure to have a good idea of your home’s value before you decide to sell. There are many ways that you can get a general idea of your property’s value, including using instant online evaluation tools or asking local estate agents to give you a free valuation.

What questions should I ask my quick home buyer?

If you’ve decided to sell to a fast property buyer, there are a few key questions you need to ask to verify both the company’s trustworthiness and the validity of the sale.

Are you a member of The Property Ombudsman (TPO)?

This is a straightforward question that will help you determine whether the quick buyer is reputable. TPO is an independent organisation that sets the rules and regulations for the property selling industry. All registered members must adhere to those policies, so if your quick buyer is a member of the TPO it’s a great sign they are trustworthy. Similarly, if they are not a TPO member you might not want to sell to them.

Do you offer sale and rent back agreements?

You should be cautious if the quick buyer offers these agreements, which occur when they buy your home and then rent it back to you after the sale. They are concerning because after six months the buyer could try to force you out of the property, so they don’t give you any certainty on how long you can continue to live in your home. But then again there are some reputable companies that offer these agreements, and you can find a list of them from the Financial Conduct Authority website.

Are you trying to make me sign a lock out contract?

These are contracts that give the quick buyer completely exclusive rights to buying your property, preventing you from entertaining offers from other buyers or trying to sell through other ways. You should be wary of lock out contracts because there’s no reason why a company that claims to be able to give you a quick sale should need to lock you into a long-term contract giving them sole right to buy your house or flat.

Alternative ways to sell your home instead of using a quick buyer

If you are still unsure about whether or not to sell your property to a quick buyer, it can be helpful to learn more about the alternative methods that you have for selling your home.

As The Advisory notes, you have a few choices and these includes selling with an estate agent, an auctioneer, or selling on your own. All three of these strategies have their own benefits and drawbacks in terms of how much they might cost in commission, how long they could take to complete, and other issues.

For example, it might take more than a year to find a buyer when you choose to sell without any assistance or if you enlist the services of an estate agent. And if you opt for using either an auctioneer or an estate agent to sell then you will have to pay them fees, adding to your costs.

Before making a final decision on which of the four approaches you want to use for selling your flat or house, it can be helpful to write down your main goals with selling – this should include your preferred sale price, whether or not you can accept paying any commission, and how fast you want to sell. Then you should compare and contrast all of these elements against the specifics of the four options, and this should identify the one that suits your needs the best.

Selling with an estate agent

If you are determined to not have to put much work into selling your home, using an estate agent could be a good choice. They will handle almost all the steps involved with finding a buyer, which begins with creating a listing that features photographs of the property and describes its main features. They will advertise this online, in their office and in local newspapers, arrange viewings, hear offers and try to get one to exchange of contracts.

For putting in all of this effort, the typical estate agent will charge you commission if they succeed in selling your house or flat. This is often charged within a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of a property’s final sale price, but the rate could be higher or lower than this. The fee will increase your expenses because it will be taken out of the sale proceeds right away.

Selling through an estate agent is not the most rapid way to find a buyer, as it might take a number of months or even more than a full year before you sell. That’s far from ideal for those owners who want to sell as fast as feasible, and they should assess other options – like selling to a quick buyer, where the entire schedule for selling will likely only be a few short weeks.

One complication that can also arise when selling through an estate agent is that someone might make an honest offer to buy your home but then later decide against it and cancel the offer, which in turn will prevent the sale from happening. They can do this without facing any penalties so long as you have not yet exchanged contracts. And the result would be much more time added to your selling calendar because you’d have to start over with seeking a buyer.

Also note that some estate agents might try a sneaky trick of quoting you a very high sale price for your home, even if they secretly know it will only sell at a lower value. They pull this trick in order to get you to sell using their services, so that they can profit from the commission that they will charge you if they find a buyer for your home – but it’s also possible to avoid falling for this.

To prevent this scenario, start by asking a number of estate agents to give you a free, zero-obligation quote price for selling your home. Then look on property sales websites and write down the current and past sale prices of homes that are similar to yours. Finally, calculate the average of all these values for a more accurate estimate of your home’s possible sale price.

Selling with an auctioneer

Auctioning a home is an uncertain choice because you might get no bids on the property, which means that it does not sell. Or you could get a bid below your goal selling price but you’ll still have to sell, as a qualifying bid is deemed a legally binding agreement to sell the property. The winning bidder could sue to enforce the sale if you attempt to walk away from it.

You will have to select a reserve price – this is the lowest price at which you agree your home can sell. Be sure to settle on a price that should generate some profit from the sale, even after paying the auctioneer their commission. If you don’t, you create the danger of only breaking even by selling at a price close to what you paid for the property, or even selling at a loss.

Auctioneers charge commission for the work that they put into selling a house or flat. A typical auctioneer will charge their commission at 2.5 percent of your home’s final sale price, but as Zoopla says, the exact rate could be above or below this amount. The fee will cause your expenses to rise because it will be subtracted from the auction proceeds right away.

One solution can be to ask if the auctioneer will reduce the amount of commission that they will charge you on the sale, or to have the winning top bidder pay a share of your costs, as either of these outcomes can help with lowering your costs – but auctioneers are not obliged to do this.

The work that auctioneers do includes creating a listing for your home, advertising it, hosting the auction and overseeing the completion of a successful sale. This can be a long process that takes many months, including a delay of many weeks between when you choose this method and when the auction takes place. If the property manages to sell, the buyer will then usually have about 28 days to sign all of the required papers and finish the other necessary tasks to finalise the purchase of your home, which will delay your selling timeline further.

There are some auctioneers that might be open to setting a shorter deadline for the winning bidder to complete these tasks, so it may be a good idea to ask about this option. But there are other auctioneers that will give buyers even more than 28 days for their various tasks.

Selling on your own

If you decide to sell your property without any third-party assistance, this puts the burden on you to complete all of the steps needed to find a buyer. You will have to put together a listing, advertise it, schedule viewings, hear offers and attempt to get one to the exchange of contracts.

This is a huge amount of work and you will not be able to only do it in your spare time, and it is likely to be very stressful. Homeowners should only consider pursuing this method if they have managed to sell a property in the past, or if they have a suitably experienced family member or friend that is willing to help out with the selling process without charging you anything.

Even with such help, it might take many months or more than an entire year to sell on your own. Remember also that someone make a true offer but then rescind it, prompting the sale to collapse. They can do this without any penalty if contracts are not yet exchanged. And this will delay a sale much further as you would then have to start over with searching for a buyer.

The only prominent benefit of selling this way is that you would not have to pay any commission to an estate agent or an auctioneer when you find a buyer, which helps with lowering your costs. But many people that use this method for selling discover that any saving that they might have made through not paying commission is cancelled out by the funds they spend on other steps.

If one of your top goals with selling is not having to pay any commission, think about instead selling to a no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties. This would provide you with same beneficial outcome of not having to pay any commission, but with the additional advantage of getting a much faster sale. That’s because quick buyers can often complete the purchase of a home within a few short weeks, which includes exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds.