"If we can’t get rid of chains, the only option is to improve the homebuying process so that it is faster, more efficient, and more reliable, thus reducing the chances that a sale somewhere in the chain will collapse and have a devastating domino effect for so many others"
- Ruth Beeton - Home Sale Pack
New research from Home Sale Pack analysed asking price data for chain-free homes currently available on the market across 10 major English cities and compared it to the wider average asking price in those cities.
The result is a new understanding of how much value buyers place on being able to avoid the stress, strife, and uncertainty of being in a chain, and therefore how much additional money they will pay for the benefit.
The analysis shows that across 10 major English cities, the average price for a chain-free home currently available on the market is £259,791. This is £9,739 more expensive than the wider average asking price of £250,053, marking a chain-free price premium of 3.9%.
This premium rises as high as 7.2% in Bradford, West Yorkshire, where the average asking price for a chain-free home is £186,472 while the wider average asking price for the city is £174,016; a cash difference of £12,456.
Liverpool’s chain-free asking price of £200,836 marks a premium of 7% compared to the city’s wider average asking price, and in Manchester, the premium is 6.5%,
London’s premium of 4.5% is equivalent to a cash difference of £23,782 - the largest across all 10 cities - followed by Newcastle (4.1%), Leeds (3.8%), and Leicester (2.5%).
In some cities, a chain-free home commands only a slight price premium, suggesting that buyers are less concerned about avoiding the dreaded chain.
The smallest premium is found in Bristol (1%), followed by Sheffield (1.2%), and Birmingham (1.5%).
Ruth Beeton, Co-Founder of Home Sale Pack, says: “Property chains are the stuff of buyer and seller nightmares. They take an already complex and stressful sales process and put control of one person’s fate into the hands of another person, or even another ten people. So it’s little wonder that homes free of a chain have an increased desirability and can often command a higher asking price.
"But, for the most part, chains are unavoidable. There’s no way of changing the fact that your typical house buyer needs to sell their current home in order to fund the purchase of a new home. So if we can’t get rid of chains, the only option is to improve the homebuying process so that it is faster, more efficient, and more reliable, thus reducing the chances that a sale somewhere in the chain will collapse and have a devastating domino effect for so many others.
"One quick way to mitigate the risk of chains is for sellers to provide buyers with all of the vital information they need about a property from the very moment they show interest in buying the home. This way, they can decide whether or not the property is right for them before even creating another link in the chain.”
