With so many warning circulating about house buyers potentially missing out on the stamp duty holiday due to an extremely property market, what one thing can you do to improve your chances of making the deadline? Finding a property that's chain-free is without a doubt one of the best ways to ensure a quick house purchase.
Chain-free properties mean that there are only two parties involved in the transaction, you as the buyer and the current owner. There are no onward sales to worry about and the seller isn’t reliant on buying another home before they can sell to you. As a result, chain-free sales are not only less stressful, but they can also take a lot less time. Put in an offer, secure a good mortgage rate, get the conveyancing side of things done – voila, you're good to go.
Yes Homebuyers looked at current property stock listed on the major portals across 23 major cities, before then looking at what proportion of this stock offered the chance of a chain free sale.
The figures show that Cambridge is the chain-free property hotspot of the UK. Currently, a huge 46 per cent of all homes listed in the city offer the chance of a chain free sale, a less stressful transaction and a quicker sales process.
Belfast is home to the second-highest number of chain-free homes for sale, with 44% of all properties currently listed for sale online coming without a dreaded chain.
Sheffield, Manchester and Liverpool share the accolade of the third best city for a chain-free sale, with 42per cent of current property stock listed as such.
Southampton and Cardiff were also home to a notable level of chain-free homes with 40 to 41 per cent of all stock listed as chain-free.
It’s not good news for those looking for a chain-free transaction in Scotland though. Both Glasgow and Edinburgh rank last with just 7 per cent of all homes currently listed for sale marked as chain-free. Aberdeen also scored low at 18 per cent along with London (32 per cent). Matthew Cooper, Founder & Managing Director of Yes Homebuyers, commented:
'Being stuck in a chain can be an incredibly stressful process when selling or buying a property and waiting for the stars to align can drag on for months on end, before the whole thing comes crashing down and you're [sic] back to square one.
'The good news is, there are plenty of chain-free properties out there for homebuyers looking to avoid the current market delays caused by heightened demand since the introduction of the stamp duty holiday. While a chain-free sale won’t help you skip the legal backlogs that are building at the back end of the transaction process, it will certainly reduce the time it will take for the transaction to reach its final stages.'
