A small but broken chain - how do we get it moving?

cheekeemonkey

Hi all

We have had our offer accepted on a house albeit the vendor will only take it off the market once we have 'formally' sold ours and we are proceeding with searches etc.


Likewise, we have accepted an offer on our property whilst continuing to market it. Our 'buyers' have sold their property but their buyer has a flat to sell (on the market at £120k) with no offers as yet.


So it's a small chain but nonetheless it ain't going anywhere!!

We need to decide on how we move this forward and what can WE do to make this happen rather than waiting and waiting and waiting.........

Our thoughts are: -

(i) Do nothing - recognising that December is a slow month and see what January brings?


(ii) Reduce the price to our buyer by £5k conditional to them reducing their price to the flat seller by £10k and then the flat seller reducing the selling price of the flat by £15k
Obviously this reduction is only applicable if all 3 links in the chain go through 'as one' and would mean each vendor incurs a £5k reduction in the price they get on their specific property but hopefully this will lead to the flat selling as it would be at a more attractive price of £105k


(iii) Buy the flat at the bottom of the chain for a 'good price' (our EA has offered to value the flat with this in mind) I'm not initially so keen on this idea as it feels like more burden in terms of cost to buy and then servicing the mortgage (c.£500k pcm) until we can sell it.

(iv) suggest to our vendor that he buys the property - he will be selling a £500k+ house and buying a £100k one, releasing £400k of equity. Not sure he'd go for this but who knows?


Hopefully my rambling on makes some sense? Has anyone had any experience of the above and if so, what advice?

Thanks
CM

:snow_grin:

david29dpo

Worth a try, but dont hold your breath. I once bought a flat at the bottom of a chain and just broke even when i sold it, and once all three of us in the chain bought a flat between us. This may be a better idea, the loses will be less!

Curv

cheekeemonkey wrote: »

(ii) Reduce the price to our buyer by £5k conditional to them reducing their price to the flat seller by £10k and then the flat seller reducing the selling price of the flat by £15k

We were in exactly the same position with regard to having an accepted offer on property but it was still being marketed as we hadn't sold ours. After a couple of weeks we approached our vendors and asked if they would stand 50% of the reduction we were planning to make on ours in order that we could all move. They agreed, we reduced and the house sold within a week.

IMO It's a much tidier way of getting things moving than buying properties you don't want - especially in the current market.

silvercar

The whole chain agreeing to a 5k reduction only works if you all have a spare 5k or can increase your mortgages by 5k. If one person can't afford to do this it all falls down.

We bought out the end of the chain. Still own the property, renting it out. Roughly speaking it breaks even, but it does mean we have this extra liability. The value of our house has gone up (as has the rented out property), so we wouldn't have been able to do the move had we not bought it. For what its worth, we made the right decision looking back.

[Deleted User]

I would continue marketing your property to see if you can find a buyer with a complete chain behind. That will put pressure on your existing Buyer and maybe persuade him to drop the price on his property to allow his Buyer to do the same.

cheekeemonkey

Thanks all

Still mulling it over but definitely would like to work on the reduced price through the chain.

As silvercar says - all depends if everyone has access to an extra £5k.