With the Christmas just over two months away, the ELPG has said that time is running out for canny buyers to secure a property to ensure they can spend Christmas in their new home and steer clear of Stamp Duty burdens.

Steve Spence, senior partner at Neilsons, said: “It takes between five to six weeks to complete a mortgage application and make all of the necessary arrangements required to buy a new home. Therefore, time is running out if you want to ensure that you buy your new property this year and move in before the festive period.

“Likewise, if you have a property to sell, you really have to get it on the market now if you are looking to dovetail your sale transaction with a purchase. Winter is a busy time for the property market and, with buyers likely to be looking to make a quick sale, you should have your home on the market to take advantage of this demand.”

The ELPG, which consists of five of the leading property solicitors in Edinburgh, believes that Gordon Brown’s decision to reintroduce the bottom tier of Stamp Duty from January 1st will also help stimulate activity in the market, as buyers try to avoid the charges by securing a home before the deadline.

Angus Macpherson, managing partner with Drummond Miller, said: “As the Government has announced that the Stamp Duty threshold will be coming back into effect on properties that sell for between £125,000 and £175,000, there is an extra incentive for buyers to make their move now.

“From January 1st, buyers will face paying an extra 1% in Stamp Duty on these properties, meaning that they could be forced to spend up to £1750 on top of the price of their new home. Therefore, anyone who wants to avoid this charge needs to act quickly and buy a new property before the end of the year.”

John Lints, senior partner at the Lints Partnership, added: “It’s likely that the reintroduction of Stamp Duty will encourage a lot more activity in the property market over the winter.

“Sellers know that there will be a lot of potential buyers looking to avoid paying Stamp Duty over the next few months, and this may encourage them to try for a quick sale. After all, it makes sense for them to try to ensure they sell their home before the end of the year, rather than risk the buyer losing interest after Stamp Duty comes back into effect.

“We’ve seen growing confidence in the property market in recent months. Sales volumes and house prices are up on their figures from last year and the conditions are still very good for would-be buyers.

“If you have the funds in place to make a purchase, you should look to do so now to secure a new home at a good price.”

Around 20% – 30% of property completions fail to happen. 150,000 house sales last year fell through because of gazumping. Sometimes these are just short delays caused by solicitors or mortgage lenders not being ready in time and everything can be brought back together in a week or two.However, often it’s because one link in the chain pulls out, stalling all other sales in the chain until another buyer is secured. This process can easily take 3 – 4 months and often causes one or more of the links to withdraw from the market completely.

In the past, if your property chain broke, you had three options: · Lose the property you were buying, wasting the time and money you have spent in the process.· Take out an expensive bridging loan, risking further cash, hoping the chain can be fixed.· Sitback and hope your vendor will be patient and is not needing to move quickly. Now, however, when a house sale chain breaks, a house buying company can help you. How can house buying companies help?

In short, house buying companies can buy your house, whether you or someone else in your chain has lost their buyer.House buying companies service either removes you from the chain completely, or enables the whole chain to complete. Either way, it guarantees your sale and the cash to buy your next house.

How does it work?

It’s quite simple. To make an offer a house buying company will arrange for 3 agents to visit your property to carry out an appraisal on their behalf.

They will then endeavour to get an offer to you within 48 hours.

On accepting our offer, they will exchange contracts and complete on the day of your choosing subject to survey and clear legal title

The buy to let market in the UK has grown hugely over the last 10 years, however things do not always go to plan. It may be difficult to find any tenants, or replace tenants who have left. Maybe the latest rise in interest rates has made buy to let unprofitable?

If you can’t let your property or the rent doesn’t now cover the mortgage, your property is costing you money and you’ll want a quick sale – this is where house buying companies can help.

How can house buyers help? House buyers will purchase your house for cash, quickly – often within 7 days.

By selling your property direct to a house buying company, you avoid the possible lengthy delays, and associated costs, of selling on the open market.

How does it work? It’s simple.

There is no cost or obligation in receiving an offer.

What are the benefits of using a house buying company?

Many people have unrealistic aspirations when it comes to selling their house, they often want a quick sale for a high price, unfortunately these two factors do not sit well together. In todays slowing market unless you are extremely lucky in order to secure a quick sale you will invariably need to lower your price. How much you are willing to lower your price may determine how quickly you sell your house.

If you are in no rush then you should be able to obtain the market value, or somewhere near, for your house. On average houses sell for 93% of their asking price.

There are several steps you could take to make your home more attractive to potential buyers such as re-decorating, tidying the garden, offering to leave carpets & curtains or certain white goods such as Fridge/freezer or washing machine. Some of these things you could do yourself others you may have to pay for. Simply re-painting walls & woodwork in your house may make it a lot more attractive, the smell of new paint may just do the trick. Does the outside of your house look tired, first impressions are of vital importance, simply adding a fresh layer of paint to the outside walls and getting someone to make your garden look like it has always been well looked after will give viewers of your property a great first impression.

Picking an estate agent is also a key factor in selling your house, don’t just go with the one that gives you the highest valuation for your house – this may be an unreasonable price which will not attract potential buyers. Do your homework & try and find out who the best estate agent in your area is, talk to other people try and find those who have recent experience of selling their houses, they may point you in the direction of a good local estate agent who will have plenty of potential buyers for your property.

However if you need to sell your house fast then your best course of action may be to sell to a property trader who will be a cash buyer able to do a deal very quickly. You will have to be willing to accept a “trade price” for your house but you should expect a good property trader to complete exchange of contracts in about 4-5 weeks. They will generally pay all the legal fees for you plus you will have no estate agent fees meaning that you will keep all the money left over from your sale less any outstanding mortgage.

· Financial Difficulties: You, may like many others, be experiencing that you are becoming more in debt at the end of each month, even arrears due to the increase in your monthly mortgage repayments. Perhaps you increasingly feel that the situation may not change in the foreseeable future. To avoid further debt or looking for ‘consolidating loans’, you want to sell your property quickly.

· Divorce or Separation: You may be divorcing or separating from a partner, and invariably the time taken to sell a property on the open market, can go from weeks to months – if not years. That’s why you may want to sell your property quickly to property buyers.

· Repossession: Falling behind on your mortgage repayments could lead to repossession. To avoid repossession you may want to sell your property quickly.

· New House Purchase: You may have found your dream home and no longer afford to keep both properties going together until your old one has sold. That’s why you want to sell your old property.

· Medical Problem: One can also sell his/her property fast because of his/her medical problems.

· Property Inheritance: You may have inherited a property and want to sell the property quickly, due to unforeseen costs or other difficulties.

· Relocation: You may be thinking of moving abroad within limited time scales, means that you are under pressure to sell your house quickly.

· Tenanted Property: Perhaps you have a property with tenants and need the money to buy a new house – or you may have problem tenants that refuse to move out of the property. This is the sort of property we want to sell quickly.

For whatever the reason, Quick Property Buy, a leading property buyer in UK, can help you to sell your property quickly. The main aim of Quick Property Buy is to sell your house quickly offering you a friendly and hassle free service from the stresses that are normally associated with moving house.

To know more about the company and its other services, please visit the site http://quick-property-buy.co.uk

There are other reasons too. You may be facing unfortunate times in personal life. Divorce proceedings are not only taxing upon your emotional health but upon your finances also. You can sell house fast in such circumstances which at least, gives you the financial support to get through the proceedings and the same time, quick house sale is a judicious and perhaps even an obvious means to part ways.

To sell your house fast, however, is not easy. You have to keep a lookout for potential buyers. Even if you hire a real estate agent, this can take time, coupled with the hassles of having people coming to see your house and somehow or the other, intruding into your privacy. A real estate agent may let you down as there are a chain of people involved in the buying process and then there are negotiations which may not always come through; there can be a chain collapse anywhere on the way if there is a disagreement over the property prices, etc.

With special agencies devoted to the cause of quick sale, you need not worry, if you need to sell house fast. These agencies do not have third parties involved and they deal with you directly, saving you much precious time and hassles in the process.

The dawn of Internet in the marketing horizon has really brought cheers to the prospects of both the buyers and the sellers. Transactions are faster and much more convenient. It has become easy to contact these special agents who can get the job done for you. At a click of a mouse, you can now determine the price your property is going to fetch. Also if you need any advice, the same is available for free from these agents who are committed to help you in any way possible.

The quick sale agents also help you out with free property evaluation helping you to determine the correct worth of your property. They are the right people to do this because they have an idea of the property and price listings of properties comparable to yours. Proper pricing instantly increases your chances of being able to sell house fast. Also they take care of other lengthy formalities that ease out the entire affair with minimal paperwork.

Availing to the services of property agents saves you a lot of time and energy. You can make good use of their expertise and experience. When you need to sell house fast, they buy your house themselves and hand over the cash to you as soon as possible.

For this you need to contact the special firms that can help you achieve a quick sale. This is rather easy. Most of the firms that provide these special services have their own websites. They can help you out to sell house fast and they can guide you with free advice using their experience and expertise.

The good thing is that they save you a lot of precious time. As both you and they understand that time is of essence here, they can work as per your timeline. You can set the period in which you want the quick sale. It can range from a month, to a week or even right down to a single day. Here they negotiate directly with you such that there is no sale chain involved. In fact, it may so happen that you contact them today and by the next day, you could be counting cash gathered from the quickly sold house, such that all your monetary problems are over.

And with their help, after you are able to sell house fast, it does not mean that time has come for you to face another problem of vacating the house and shifting. You can rent back at market price or even less. And you can stay back for the time period you would like, be it weeks or months. You even retain the option of buying back the house after a few years as per the arrangements you set up with the buyer.