Choose the right buyers to avoid delays

Don't make your selling decision exclusively on price. The money is important, but equally important, if you have linked purchase, is that the buyer will actually perform in time. There are several factors which are usually crucial.

Cash is king

A cash buyer is particularly attractive.  A cash buyer is someone who doesn't need to sell a property and doesn't need to raise finance on mortgage to buy your property.  A cash buyer is a rare beast! A cash buyer will usually expect to get something off the asking price because of the benefit he offers.

Lose the chains

A buyer who is not in a chain is attractive.  The way the property market works is that most people are selling a property to buy another property and they have to tie both transactions together.  This means that there will be several linked buyers and sellers and no one can exchange contracts until everyone is ready.  When exchange of contracts takes place it is handled simultaneously by the various solicitors.  But this means that everyone in a chain of linked transactions is held up until the last person is ready.  So you only have to have one buyer pull out somewhere in the chain and everyone is delayed.  If you find a buyer who does not have to sell a property, you remove that risk (Of course, you still have the potential problem for transactions 'upstream' from the property you are buying).

First time buyers

A first-time buyer is attractive.  In fact, this is really just the same as a buyer who does not have a property to sell.  Such a buyer is more likely than not going to be a first-time buyer.  The only problem with first-time buyer is that he is usually raising a very high proportion of the property price on mortgage -- sometimes even 105% -- and raising the mortgage finance may take slightly longer than would be the case for a buyer only raising, say, 70% of the purchase price because he is using funds from a previous sale.  Nonetheless, a first-time buyer is usually an attractive proposition.

Mortgage offer in principle

A buyer with a mortgage arranged in principle is to be preferred over one who has not yet arranged a mortgage.  It is a sensible step for a buyer to take to get prior approval from a chosen lender for the proposed loan before going looking for a property to buy.  Unless he does that, he won't know exactly what value property he can afford to buy.  If a buyer tells you he does not yet have mortgage finance arranged in principle, that should start alarm bells.  This is not the same as a mortgage offer.  The lender is only saying that, based on the buyer's references and income, that sort of loan would be given.  They still have to check out your property before guaranteeing the loan.  But that is always the case. The mortgage in principle tells you two things: first, the deal shouldn't collapse in two weeks when the buyer discovers his assumptions about the level of loan he could get were hopelessly optimistic; and, second, you are dealing with an organised buyer, not a flaky one who is likely to let you down.

A buyer with his property under offer

A buyer who has already sold his property - as in moved out and banked the money - is now a cash buyer or the equivalent to you of a first time buyer. But if you have an offer from a buyer with a property to sell, you want it to be someone who has his existing home under offer. The best approach to buying and selling is to get your own property under offer before looking for a property to buy.  If somebody comes to you saying that he has not yet put his property on the market, you should normally look for someone else.  If a buyer already has his property under offer, that means the conveyancing process has got under way and it shouldn't then hold up your transaction.