What is upsizing?
Upsizing your home is the term used to refer to moving from one property to a larger property and is one of the commons reasons for selling a home. This applies to all kinds of houses and flats, and means that the homeowner has left their existing property to buy or rent a bigger home – whether that’s a building with the same square footage but with the addition of a garden, or an overall larger property.
That compares to downsizing, which is the term used to refer to situations when homeowners decide to sell their properties and move into a smaller house or flat, whatever the reason for the move. We have also written a comprehensive guide regarding downsizing your property which you may also find to be a useful read.
The benefits of upsizing your property
If you’re thinking about selling your existing home and buying a bigger property, there are two clear advantages of upsizing your home that will generally always apply:
Getting more space for you and your loved ones – One of the primary reasons that people upsize is to get more space, including additional bedrooms. For example you might have recently married and therefore want more living space for you and your loved one. Or perhaps your family has grown with more children and you need a place with extra bedrooms for everyone.
Investing in a more valuable asset for your future – Larger homes commonly are more valuable than smaller properties, and so upsizing means you are investing in a long-term asset that will be more valuable than your existing smaller home. When you’re thinking of upsizing you can browse homes for sale online at popular property websites like OnTheMarket.
Some potential disadvantages of upsizing your property
As with any decision about the property market, there are some potential drawbacks with upsizing that you should consider before making a final decision:
Paying more for utilities like water and electricity – Buying a larger home means that you will likely end up with more expensive utility bills every month. The bigger the property, the more water, electricity, and other utilities it will use, and this will be reflected in higher bills each month. Make sure you can budget for paying these bills if you decide to upsize to a new property.
Spending more time and money on maintaining your home – In addition to spending more money on utility bills, you can also expect to be investing more time and money in general upkeep of your larger home. The more space you have, the more space you have to keep tidy. This is particularly true if your old home didn’t have a garden but your new place does, as you’ll have to keep it maintained.
Ways to reduce the expense of upsizing your property
Purchasing a larger property often means that you’ll have to spend more on your next home than it cost to buy your existing flat or house. But even when you are looking to upsize you’re your next property, there are still ways to reduce this overall expense, as Yopa says.
Whilst not all of the below tips might apply to your unique situation when upsizing, some could nevertheless help with reducing the total price tag of buying your new home.
Mortgage shopping: If you need to obtain a loan in order to purchase your upsized home, it’s worth taking time to shop around and get quotes from a number of different mortgage providers. This can help with finding a loan that has reduced interest rates, fees and other charges.
Assess space: Although you know that you want to buy a larger home, you should consider how much extra space you actually need. This will help with identifying properties that can meet your needs without buying a larger, more-expensive home with space you never end up using.
Make repairs: One option for reducing the upfront cost of upsizing is to purchase a property that might be in need of repairs, whether it’s a small flaw or a larger-scale problem. These homes are often on the market at reduced prices compared to homes without negative issues.
Change location: Yet another way that you might be able to find a property for upsizing at a lower price is by rethinking your preferred location, as a house or flat in an area with lower demand from buyers will likely cost less than one situated in a high-demand location.
Options for selling your current home when you’re ready to upsize
If you have found the next dream property for your upsizing, you will then have to decide on which method you want to use for selling your current house or flat. The usual choices are selling to a quick home, selling with an estate agent, selling via an auction or selling without any assistance.
All four of these options have advantages and disadvantages based on whether they charge fees, how long they take to complete, and other issues. For example, it might only take a handful of weeks to finalize the sale of your home when you contact a quick buyer, whereas it can take more than a year when selling using an estate agent or selling on your own.
It might help to write down your top aims with selling, such as whether you are willing to pay commission, your preferred sale price, and how rapidly you want to sell. Then compare all of these elements against the specific details of the four selling methods below and this should assist in identifying the strategy that pairs the best with your particularly situation.
Selling to a quick home buyer
LDN Properties is an example of a quick buyer, which is a company that has the funds available upfront to buy your home immediately. They do not have to wait for many weeks or even months to first get approved for a mortgage in order to purchase your home. This cuts the typical timeline when selling this way down to just a few weeks from the start to the finish.
Honest quick buyers will also commit to never charging you any commission when purchasing your property, which helps with lowering your total selling costs. That compares to selling through an estate agent or an auctioneer, as those two methods will require that you pay them commission if they manage to sell your home, and this is deducted from the sale proceeds.
Another reason why a quick buyer can be a great option for selling your home is if your property has some type of legal dispute, structural flaw or anything else that others might consider to a dealbreaking problem that causes them to lose interest in the property. Quick buyers are well known for making competitive and speedy offers to buy practically any leasehold or freehold property no matter such issues and regardless of its age, condition, location, shape or size.
Launched in 2003, LDN Properties’ long list of purchases throughout the UK includes houses without a Heating Equipment and Testing Approval Scheme certificate, properties located on a roundabout, smoker’s flats, homes that lack a bathroom or a kitchen, houses that have Japanese knotweed in the garden, properties that have elevated levels of radon, penthouse flats, homes that have a regulated tenancy, and many other varied situations.
The next step, if you accept the initial offer, is for a representative from the quick buying company to visit your home in order to inspect the interior and exterior before they make a final offer. This is the only viewing that you will need to agree to with this selling option, compared to dozens or more viewings that might be needed when you sell through other methods.
And the last step is when you accept the final offer, and the quick buyer works speedily with your solicitor or other legal representative to handle all of the final steps to complete the sale, including signing the relevant legal documents. The entire process should only take a few short weeks to complete, and this covers paying you the sale proceeds and exchanging contracts.
Selling with an estate agent
Selling this way is not the best choice for those owners that want to reduce their total expenses because an estate agent will charge commission if they succeed in finding a buyer for your home, as Sold says. This fee will be taken out of the eventual sale proceeds right away.
Estate agents often charge their commission within a range from 1.15 percent to 1.40 percent of a property’s final sale price, although the exact amount may be above or below this range. You could ask an individual estate agent if they are willing to reduce the fee that they charge, in order to lower your costs, but note that others might charge much more than 1.40 percent.
An estate agent charges this fee for the work that they do in searching for a buyer, which begins when they put together a listing that describes your home and features photographs of the interior and exterior. They will advertise this online, in local newspapers, and in their office, and then arrange viewings for anyone interested in your property to tour it in person. Finally, an estate agent will hear offers from buyers, seeking to get one to the exchange of contracts.
All of these steps can take a long time to complete and it might take many months, or even more than an entire year, to sell this way. Note also that someone can make an offer but later decide against it and rescind the offer. This would make the sale fall apart, and you can’t penalize the person that did this unless you have exchanged contracts already. Then you would need to start over with seeking a buyer, which would delay a sale much further.
Selling via an auctioneer
When you sell through an auctioneer, you won’t have to put in much effort at they will be responsible for most tasks needed to find a buyer for your home. They will create a listing and advertise it, host the auction, and oversee the completion a hopefully successful sale.
It’s possible that you will be asked to choose between a traditional or modern method of auction. With the traditional method, your listing will be advertised ahead of the auction taking place, at which time people can place bids on your home and the highest at the end of the auction is the winner and person buying it. With the modern method, your listing will be active for a set number of weeks or months, and people can place bids on it 24 hours a day, seven days a week. The top bid at the time the listing expires is deemed the winner and therefore the buyer.
Regardless of which auction method you choose, if your property manages to sell at the auction then you will need to pay the auctioneer commission. This will cause your expenses to increase because the fee will be subtracted immediately from the auction proceeds. Expect this fee to be set at about 2.5 percent of your home’s sale price but it might be more or less than this amount.
You should bear the auctioneer’s fees in mind when calculating your reserve price, which is the minimum price at which you can accept selling your house or flat. Doing so can help you to devise a reserve price that should produce a profit from the sale, rather than risking selling at a loss or only just breaking even by selling at a price close to what you paid for the home.
Selling with an auctioneer is also far from the swiftest selection, as it involves a fair amount of waiting. This includes many weeks or possibly months between the day on which you decide to sell your home this way and the day on which the auction takes place. If the property sells, the buyer than has about 28 days to complete their mandatory tasks needed to finalize the sale, such as signing the required legal papers, which extends the selling timeline further.
Selling without any assistance
Or you might be interested in selling without any help from an estate agent or an auctioneer, which puts the burden on you to handle what’s need to find a buyer for your home. You’ll need to prepare and advertise a listing, host viewings, and hear offers from potential buyers, with the ultimate goal of trying to convert one of those offers to the final exchange of contracts.
The only prominent benefit of selling without any help is that you will not be required to pay a third party any commission, so that helps lower your costs. But it’s possible that any saving that you make from avoiding fees is wiped out by the funds that you spend on other selling tasks.
And this can also be a highly stressful way to sell a home that might take more than an entire year. Even if you receive a legitimate offer, the buyer might later cancel it, which will make the sale collapse. There’s nothing that can be done to penalize them for this if you have not yet exchanged contracts. And you would then need to begin again with the search for another buyer, adding potentially much more time to the overall selling schedule.
One alternative to consider is instead selling your house or flat to an honest zero-fee quick home buyer like LDN Properties. You would achieve the same aim of not having to pay any commission on the sale of your home, but you will also get the perk of being able to finalize the sale within a few weeks, and that includes exchanging contracts and getting the sale proceeds. It’s a no-hassle, streamlined and stress-free option for selling almost any type of property.
Upsizing your property: seven common questions and answers
You might have questions about upsizing, whether you’re selling a home to move into a bigger property, or whether you’d like to sell an upsized property. Here are seven top queries:
Because moving to a larger property naturally means that you will be using more utilities like water and electricity, as well as increased bills for general maintenance and upkeep. Council tax bills also tend to be higher for bigger houses. If you have any financial concerns you should calculate these cost increases before upsizing.
Not necessarily. It’s possible that some people might consider that they are upsizing if their existing home doesn’t have a garden but then they move to a house of the exact same size except it has a garden. Generally upsizing refers to scaling up the overall size and scope of a property, which also includes the total square footage of your home.
We often hear from homeowners that the reason they’ve decided to upsize to a larger house or flat is because their family has grown – either because they got married or they’re expecting children. Having a bigger property with more rooms means a less-stressful living experience because no-one will feel cramped into a small space.
In order to reduce the upfront cost of purchasing the larger home where you want to move, you can consider a few different tactics. One option would be to search for a flat or house in areas where demand from buyers for properties is lower, as these might be cheaper to purchase. The same applies to homes that might be in need of repairs, as the price could be lower.
Once you are ready to sell your current property, you will usually be able to select from selling to a quick buyer such as LDN Properties, selling with an estate agent, selling through an auctioneer or selling without any third-party help. All four choices have their own benefits and drawbacks based on factors such as how long they take and whether they charge fees.
If you decide to sell your existing home through an auctioneer or an estate agent then they will make you pay commission if they succeed in selling your property, and this fee would be deducted from the eventual sale proceeds, adding to your costs. If you instead sell on your own or sell to a no-fee quick buyer like LDN Properties then you won’t pay any commission.
This will depend on which option you use for selling your house or flat, because the four typical options vary in how long they take. Selling to a quick buyer should only take a few short weeks from start to finish, and that includes exchanging contracts and paying you the proceeds. Selling with an estate agent, via an auctioneer, or on your own can all take at least several months.
Ready to upsize? LDN Properties can quickly buy your existing home
Our team has many years of experience buying houses and flats of all types, so we are the perfect partner for you if you have upsized your property and either want to sell your previous home or are interested in now selling your new larger property. Get in touch with us by clicking the button marked "Request Offer" below, or we can be reached by phone at 020 7183 3022.
