FAQs

Which should I do first, market my current home or find my next property?

Although it can be viewed as a chicken or egg scenario by many, I think putting your current property on the market first is the way to go in most cases. When you do find your next property, you will be in a much stronger position to be considered as a proceedable applicant if you have already accepted an offer on your current property. Yes, there’s a risk that you won’t manage to secure your next property in time and could then lose the offer that’s been made on your current home, but I feel this risk is lower than that of not having an offer accepted on the property you wish to buy because you’re not viewed as being in a proceedable position.

Many decisions carry risk on both sides, and it’s about choosing the option which you perceive to be the lower risk of the 2 options, thereby swinging the odds in your favour. Plus, having accepted an offer for your current home certainly focusses the mind on finding your next one.

What determines property value?

Whilst there are a huge number of factors impacting value, from size, condition, location, parking, gardens, and many more, there is one overarching factor that dwarfs all others. This is the same primary influence on value, that is shared with every other product in the world, quite simply, DEMAND.

I’ve drawn this graphic to illustrate how the demand for properties reduces as the value goes up. This prevents the value of property increasing in a linear relationship to the size and quality of the property. In other words, if we had 2 houses identical in all other aspects, but one was twice the size of the other, the larger property would not command twice the value of the one half its size. With demand reducing as value increases, the reduction in demand prevents value rising at the same rate as size.

This is why housing developers will often squeeze as many properties as they can on to a new development site, 3 small houses will collectively be valued a lot higher than 1 house 3 times the size of those smaller houses, simply because demand for the larger, higher price properties is much lower. Value is hugely subjective, but ultimately, because Demand trumps all other factors, a property is only ever worth what buyers are willing to pay for it.

This graphic is an illustration of principle only, and not to be taken as representing accurate data.