Q. I’ve just had an offer accepted on a property that I am super happy about. The purchase though is dependent on me selling my one bedroom apartment. The agent that I am buying through is trying to convince me that it will be advantageous to give him mine to sell too even though I had already decided on an agent to sell mine prior to my offer being accepted. Can you tell me if there really would be an advantage to keeping it all with one agent or is he just trying to secure the business for his own financial gain?
A. Actually the agent is right. Keeping it all in house will definitely be advantageous for so many reasons. Given you are in a chain you already start off on the back foot, because without selling you cannot buy, so its super important that you have someone that is privy to what is going on both transactions to enable transparency to the Vendor you are buying from. If there are any delays along the line which inevitably there will be, especially when there are third parties involved like managing agents etc. at least your agent will be able to feed information through to the vendor of the place you are buying so he is aware of what is actually going on so that he doesn’t think you are causing unnecessary delays, triggering the whole process to become fractious and fraught. The agent will be cautious too in selecting your buyer, searching out someone chain free where possible to lessen the length of the chain. They will also be able to advise the buyer of yours re timescales etc. the agent will also be in the unique position of being able to communicate directly with all parties solicitors too, which will be immensely time saving as information can quickly be relayed from one end of the chain to the other. All in all if you are happy with the agent I would defiantly recommend you proceed with them, it’s not to say another agent wouldn’t be perfectly capable of getting the job done, it’s just it may not run quite as smoothly or exchange and complete as quickly as it likely would if it were all in kept house!