Selling a home quickly isn’t always easy, especially in the post credit crunch era! However, so you know how to sell your home fast, to a legitimate buyer, read our five ways to quickly and safely sell your home!

How fast can you sell your home?
The fastest timescale you can normally sell a property ranges from one to three weeks, unless you have all the paperwork ready, for example an ‘exchange ready’ HIP. Developers can normally sell their properties within days as the legal paperwork is always ready, so as long as the buyer’s solicitor is good at their job and willing to work within tight timescales it is possible to even sell within days.

Option One: Sale and Rent Back
If you want to sell your home to an investor and continue to stay in it, you can, but the individual or company needs to be registered with the Sale and Rent Back consumer information on the Financial Services Authority website. If they aren’t they are not operating legally and you could end up losing your home altogether.

Option Two: Sell to an Investor
If you want to sell your property fast and go, it’s possible to find someone that wants to buy it, develop it or rent it out and sell it at a much later date. You can do this by looking in your local property papers for adverts or by chatting to local estate agents or even lettings’ specialists that have landlords who might like to buy.

Beware though, investors will look for substantial discounts and if you have a few weeks or months, it may be better to try other methods, or you could be losing up to 50% of the real value of your home.

Option Three: Sell it via Auction
Auctions happen on a monthly basis and can be a great way to sell your property fast and at the best price. Don’t be frightened off by a low ‘guide price’ suggestion from the auctioneer, properties are usually priced at 25% LESS than they are expected to sell for.

Also auction houses at the moment are starved of good properties at great prices, so you may well get a lot more selling a property this way than you would if you sold to a property investor.

Option Four: Sell via a ‘Chain Breaking’ Service
Chain breaking services are similar to selling to an investor, except it’s a company that may come to your home to value it or will do it remotely via selected estate agents. They can take a little longer than investors and will typically offer 15-20% below the actual market value of your home.

Typically they buy the property in then sell it back out on the open market, so some will offer you a share of the ‘additional’ money they earn IF they sell for more than expected. For example, if they value your home at £100,000, pay you 15% less (ie £85,000) but then sell it for £110,000, some will give you 60% of the additional £10,000 they sell it for ie £6,000.

Option Five: Sell via Part Exchange
If you are looking to buy and sell at the same time and need to move quickly, buying a new build may be the answer to your prayers! This can be particularly helpful if you are trading down and want to buy in a retirement community or if you are about to have a family and need to move to a bigger home very quickly!

Part exchange works by the developer agreeing to value your home and to buy it at a certain price. Appointed legal companies then co-ordinate the purchase of your current home with you buying their property. This means you can end up buying and selling at the same time in a matter of weeks, and with new builds currently at rock bottom prices, it’s certainly something to consider!

What will Stop a Home Selling Fast?
There are lots of reasons why homes don’t sell fast and against popular belief, it’s typically not the estate agents at fault, it is normally a lack of action and co-ordination by poor solicitors or conveyancers.

Unfortunately whether we like it or not, selling a home has lots of pitfalls from tracking down missing paperwork to poor communication between estate agents, legal companies, lenders and insurance companies as well as you, the buyers and sellers.