Quick sale companies offer to buy your house quickly and at a discounted price, usually at around 85% of the market value of your property. While selling your home can take you somewhere between 3 and 12 months, quick house sale companies can offer to sell your home in as fast as a week.
This is accomplished by buying your house or finding a third-party buyer to purchase it from you quickly. The companies pay in cash for the property and will generally buy it at a discounted rate.
The Dangers and Benefits of Quick House Sales
By opting to sell your property through a quick house sale company, you may liable to certain damaging consequences. Such companies may try to mislead you by, for example, offering one price upfront only to drop the offer just before the deal is signed. Other problems may include fee structures not being made clear by the companies, or their inability to provide truthful property valuations.
Quick house sale companies may also try to provide contracts that tie people in, stopping them from selling to anyone else who might have had a better offer for your property.
Nonetheless, you may benefit from selling your property fast through quick house sales companies. This could help you to dispose of unwanted inherited property, avoid repression and clear debts, or relocate fast because of a change of job or relationship breakdown.
What should you consider with these companies?
The quick house sale market is not regulated and so you are not protected when selling a property to one of these companies. However, you may select a firm that offers you greater protection as a result of some companies choosing to join the National Association of Property Buyers (NAPB).
The NAPB make sure that all members register with The Property Ombudsman (TPOS) and follow their Code of Conduct to ensure that sellers are treated fairly.
By using a company that is part of the NAPB or TPOS, homeowners can complain to the ombudsman and get compensation if they find that the company has broken the TPOS Code of Practice.
Other things to consider when using a quick house sale company are:
- Get a valuation from other estate agents: this will demonstrate if the offer made by a quick sale company is accurate
- Shop around for offers from different companies
- Check the company’s credentials: if the prover is a broker, check that they are registered with TPOS
- Get your own independent legal advisor: the company you’re using cannot make you use the legal representative they recommend
- Avoid long tie-ins: a quick sale contract should be shorter than a typical estate agent’s contract (which lasts around 8-12 weeks)
- Get advice on your options from a mortgage broker to potentially remortgage to a better deal
- Seeking advice on managing your debt problems: the government’s Money Helper site has produced a number of free guides for people with financial problems and have a helpline
What alternatives are there?
Instead of selling your property through a quick house sale company, you could opt to sell through a traditional estate agent.
Before deciding whether to go ahead with a quick sale company, you should always ask a number of local estate agents for a lower price that could get you a quick sale for. The amount you need to drop to attain a quick sale is less than the 25% a property buying company would ask for.
Alternatively, you could negotiate with your mortgage company if the reason that you are selling is that you cannot keep up with your mortgage payments.
If this is the case, contact your lender to discuss your options as mortgage companies have to consider a request to change the way you pay your mortgage. For example, they may suggest extending the term of your mortgage (the amount of time left to run on the mortgage) to reduce your monthly repayments.
