How many days does it take to sell a St Neots home?

Whether you are a St Neots homeowner, first-time buyer or a landlord; the last 15 months has been a roller coaster ride when it comes to the St Neots property market.

With 213,120 UK house buyers and 58,580 UK tenants moving home in June, the summer has been manic for many people.

Some St Neots homeowners are asking if they should be staying put? Or should they wait for the best house to come onto the market before putting their home up for sale? What if they find a buyer but are unable to find a property?

St Neots landlords are considering whether they should buy another property investment or if they should sell and cash in on the boom?

Finally, with 95% mortgages back, first-time buyers are asking if they should look to take the plunge and buy their first home or wait?

In this article, we hope we can help you with the decisions you might want to make and to navigate this unusual post lockdown housing market.

Let’s start with some stats to show you what is happening at the moment in St Neots.

The average time it takes to sell a St Neots property in this housing market is 24 days.

Compared with nearby Eaton Socon at 32 days, Gamlingay at 30 days, Potton at 25 days and Sandy at 32 days.

Look back five years and it took 59 days on average to sell a St Neots home – that’s more than a month slower than today.

The property market has certainly solidified a little over the last few weeks. The Stamp Duty holiday rush has seen its run and the pent-up post-Brexit and more importantly post-lockdown demand has receded and although we are still observing competing offers on most St Neots properties, we see a small shift in the balance-of-power between the seller and buyer.

Many people have put their house hunting on hold as they go on their first holiday since 2019, be that glamping in Cornwall or having days out on a ‘staycation’. That means between now and mid-September, depending on what type of property you are looking for, many buyers could well discover that there are fewer competitors for their next home than there might have been.

Also, July and August are notoriously barren months for estate agents putting new properties up for sale. Yet since the typical ‘seasonal property market’ is so out of kilter as a result of the pandemic, many agents are taking on a decent number of very good properties now, which is not something that characteristically would have happened in the summer months.

The important thing is not to wait for the property to hit the portals (i.e. Rightmove etc). Yet research shows, nearly 5 out of 6 people who bought their home were not on the agents mailing list before they viewed the home they eventually bought. That’s OK in a normal property market as you can wait until it hits Rightmove or Zoopla, yet these are unprecedented times and if you are not on an agent’s mailing list - you will miss out on properties.

If you don’t put yourself on the agent’s mailing lists, you could end up losing out on the property of your dreams.

So, the question is, should you put your St Neots home on the market first or wait for the right property to come along?

Roll the clock back a few years and it was standard practice for people to wait for their dream home to come onto the market, then put theirs on and hope that it would sell in time. This housing market is different and only those who are in a position to proceed (cash buyers or those sold subject to contract) will be considered as serious buyers.

Nobody wants to be homeless if they do sell.

Estate agents are polishing their skills of chain building. By starting at the bottom of the chain of the smaller house and building up a chain, waiting for everybody to find their next homes, nobody need be made homeless. Realistically, most house sales are taking on average between 20 and 25 weeks to complete, so in combination with chain building, it’s reassuring to know it’s an achievable strategy to put your home on the market before you’ve found the next one.

So what St Neots homes are selling the fastest?

• St Neots Terraced and Town Houses are selling in 14 days
• St Neots Semi-Detached Houses are selling in 19 days
• St Neots Detached Houses are selling in 26 days
• St Neots Apartments are selling in 58 days

What is the take home?

The lessons I hope you have now learnt from this are to put yourself on agent’s mailing lists, talk to agents about your requirements so you get a heads up first when a property is coming onto the market and once you have found a property you can afford to be a little bit more patient with how long it takes to build a chain and then get the property through to an exchange and completion.

Whether you are a St Neots homeowner, St Neots landlord or first-time buyer and would like some advice and opinion on your circumstances in the current St Neots property market, please don’t hesitate to either pick up the phone or drop us a message.

To everyone else, what are your thoughts on the St Neots property market?