Homebuyers completing on a property purchase risk seeing the value of their property fall by up to £195,000 before they’ve completed, new research has suggested.
Moverly’s latest research showed how house prices have changed over the last four months, the current time in which it takes to move a transaction to completion after accepting an offer.
In no less than 36 areas across the UK market, buyers are finding that they are already out of pocket on their purchase by the time they complete, with house prices falling since they originally agreed an offer.
In some areas this decline is substantial and nowhere more so than in Kensington and Chelsea, where a buyer completing today will have already seen the value of their home fall by £194,806 – a decrease of £1,299 for every day it took for them to complete.
Hammersmith and Fulham (-£63,815), Westminster (-£45,890), and Islington (-£27,646) have also seen some of the largest drops in house price during the time it takes to complete a sale.
Moverly co-founder Ed Molyneux commented:
“Anyone who has had the pleasure of moving home in the UK will know that regardless of how quickly you agree an offer, the time taken between this point and actually completing on a sale can drag on for what seems like forever.
So much so that when a sale does finally complete, the value of the home in question has often shifted by thousands of pounds.
All too often this delay is down to the inadequate supply of upfront property information which not only slows the offer negotiation process, but it can also considerably increase the chance of a transaction falling through.”
However, while the rate of house price growth may have slowed with dips seen in some areas, the average UK house price has still climbed by £5,323 to £294,329 over the last four months. This means that some homebuyers completing in the current market will have seen an increase in the value of their home to the tune of up to £35 per day.
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And still, articles in conveyancing skirt & flirt around the topic of gazundering. Lest the light be shone on how modern conveyancing practices encourage and enable the behaviour.