Research has revealed that buyers are willing to pay as much as £76,000 extra to buy a property with no chain.
A chain-free property, or a property described as having ‘no chain’, means the vendor doesn’t need to buy another house at the same time as they are selling. This often means the purchase, once agreed, will generally be more straightforward as isn’t reliant on the seller having to complete another purchase or find somewhere to rent, leading to a less stressful transaction process.
The dreaded chain is the string of transactions linked to your purchase and includes the property your seller is buying, the property their seller is buying, the property you are selling and all of the transactions going up and down the chain. Not only can a chain cause considerable delays waiting for all of the purchases and sales to align so everyone can complete, but if one sale falls through it can often cause the whole chain to collapse like a deck of cards.
This uncertainty can make the protracted and stressful experience of buying a home all the longer and more stressful meaning a chain-free property is a hot commodity in the UK housing market, especially of late when buyers were trying to complete their purchases to secure the discounts afforded by the Stamp Duty Land Tax holiday before the discount period ended.
The new research from the estate agency comparison website GetAgent has found that buyers are willing to pay a significant premium to secure a chain-free home… even as high as £76k.
GetAgent looked at the price premiums paid for chain-free houses in 19 major UK cities and discovered that, on average, homebuyers were willing to pay 10.8 per cent more – that equates to £25,049 in today’s market.
The greatest chain-free house price premium they discovered is currently in Edinburgh, where homebuyers are willing to pay £75,606 more for a chain-free property, which is unexpected given that the Scottish property selling procedure provides buyers with a higher level of protection against transitions falling through.
Nottingham had the second-highest premium at £50,654, followed by Liverpool (£39,829), Sunderland (£39,180), Portsmouth (£38,008), Southampton (£36,049), London (£33,074), Newcastle (£32,726), Leicester (£29,571), and Swansea (£24,739).
Data on chain-free house prices for each city sourced from PropertyData
Wider general house price data for each city sourced from Gov.uk UK House Price Index (October 2021 – latest available)
However, a chain-free property doesn’t guarantee a healthy boost to house prices. In Cardiff, a 0.2 per cent chain-free premium equates to just £548 more in the current market.
Founder and CEO of GetAgent.co.uk, Colby Short, commented: “We may have enjoyed a property market boom of late, but this high level of activity has also led to sizable delays during the transaction process and if this has taught us anything, it’s the added value of a quick and painless property purchase.
A chain-free property can be a rare and converted creature in some areas of the property market and so when one does go up for sale, it’s not unusual for it to command a far higher price. This premium has no doubt been further boosted due to the long delays endured by those buying and selling over the last 18 months or so.
Of course, this isn’t guaranteed and if you do come to sell without a chain, a good estate agent should be able to advise just how much more you could make. This will be very dependent on where and what you’re trying to sell and you shouldn’t assume you can make more just because you’re selling without a chain.
Overpricing in any market is a sure-fire way to deter buyer interest and watch your home stagnate with little to no interest for months on end.”
