Whether you are a Fife landlord looking to liquidate your buy-to-let investment or a Fife homeowner looking to sell your home, finding a buyer and then getting the legal work done can take a frustratingly long time.
It is a step-by-step process that can take many months.
One of the worst parts of house selling is not knowing how long you might be stuck at each step. Independent research shows that, in the last 12 months, every estate agent in the UK has taken on average, 67 days from the property coming on the market to be sold subject to missive (STC) and then 113 days to get to completion. That’s nearly 26 weeks from the board going up.
The journey is a long one and not guaranteed. Nationally, only 52.8% of UK homeowners who placed their homes on the market in 2023 sold and moved.
Therefore, I will explain each stage of the house-selling procedure in Fife in this article.
Stage 1 – Find Your Buyer
You need to instruct an estate agent (of course, we can help you with that) who will discuss a pricing and marketing strategy to help you find a buyer who fits your circumstances.
Independent data states that, in the last three months, it has taken an average of 71 days for a Fife home to agree to a sale (i.e., sold STC)
Yet, as I have stated in my other recent articles, the Fife property market is like a fly’s eye, split into many little micro markets.
Looking at that independent research (which only focused on Fife), it was thought-provoking to see how the different price levels (i.e. those different micro markets) are currently performing when we consider the average number of days it takes to find a buyer for a property in Fife.
Average time to find a buyer in Fife for sales agreed (SSTC) in the last 3 months.
- Under £100k – 59 days
- £100k to £200k – 52 days
- £200k to £300k – 81 days
- £300k to £400k – 96 days
- £400k to £500k – 102 days
- £500,000 to £1m – 138 days
- over £1m – 206 days
Then, I looked at the same data and calculated which price band had the highest proportion of properties sold (stc).
- Under £100k – 271 sales agreed (SSTC) – 20.22% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
- £100k to £200k – 553 sales agreed (SSTC) – 41.27% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
- £200k to £300k – 293 sales agreed (SSTC) – 21.87% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
- £300k to £400k – 116 sales agreed (SSTC) – 8.66% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
- £400k to £500k – 42 sales agreed (SSTC) – 3.13% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
- £500,000 to £1m – 63 sales agreed (SSTC) – 4.70% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
- over £1m – 2 sales agreed (SSTC) – 0.15% of the properties Sold STC in Fife in the last 3 months
So, now you have secured a buyer. What is next?
Selling your property in Fife involves a variety of typical issues and the involvement of a wide and varied range of professionals.
That means huge differences exist in how long it takes from one Fife property to another.
Stage 2 – Instruct Solicitors (and Mortgage)
Again, we can suggest the best solicitors to sell your Fife home. As the home seller, your solicitor will prepare your home’s initial legal paperwork (with your help) and then send it to your buyer.
Stage 3 – Legal Work and Survey
Once your buyer’s solicitor receives the paperwork, they apply for local searches from the local authority/land registry (to ensure no roads or airports, etc., are being built in the back garden!). These searches can take several weeks to be returned from the local authority/land registry, from which questions will be raised by the buyer’s solicitor to your solicitor. The home report is made available to both solicitors. This is the surveyor’s report and mortgage valuation. In some cases a lender will ask for an independent survey to make sure it is worth the purchase price.
Stage 4 – Conclusion of Missives
Assuming all the mortgage, survey, and legal work is without any issues, both buyer and seller sign missives, and the solicitors then perform a “Conclusion of Missives”. When missives are concluded and now both buyer and seller are legally tied in. In some instances the buyer may have agreed to pay a non-returnable deposit, YET, hold on—we aren’t there yet!
Stage 5 – Completion
Completion is when the money and keys are handed over. It usually happens a week to a fortnight after the exchange of missives (yet since lockdown, it can happen at the same time as the exchange of missives). In essence, the buyer’s solicitor sends the purchase money to the seller’s solicitor, and once that money arrives, the keys will be given to the buyer.
In Fife, it currently takes 78 days from instructing solicitors (Stage 2) to completion (Stage 5)
Compared to 113 days nationally.
To conclude, you are looking at a good five to six months from putting the for-sale board up to moving out.
If you are thinking of selling your Fife home or if you are a Fife landlord wanting to sell your buy-to-let property (with tenants in) and you want an informal, no-obligation chat to ensure you get a decent price with minimal fuss, contact us on: https://www.fifeproperties.co.uk/
