When to sell your Home

Should I sell my house now? If you are looking to sell your house privately, then the property you are selling is most likely going to be your place of abode, so you usually won't have much say over when you put your home on sale, as circumstances will more likely dictate that than anything else.

There will normally be two broad reasons for wanting to sell your current place of abode.

1. A move on the property ladder either up or downsizing by moving into a smaller house or a flat, change in location, etc.

2. Financial circumstances like inability to afford monthly mortgage payments or health problems resulting in a loss of job or serious drop in income.

Since these circumstances are normally independent of the current property market forces, you can't normally just want to sell your home soley for the aim of making a profit, though if you have owned the place for a long number of years then it is most likely to have appreciated in value.

So to the original question, when is a good time to sell my house? Well unless you have a property that is suffering from Negative Equity, then the short answer is when the circumstances arises that cause you to think about your next move on the ladder. Depending on what is going on in the market, you might need to vary your time a little especially if interest rate cuts are on the market. If in doubt you can always take advice from an independent finacial adviser. It is your place of abode, so you should be choosing when to sell your home privately!

Home sales with low interest rates

With the recent bank of england interest rate cut, what will be the effect on the home selling market?

The first thing that needs to happen is consumer confidence needs to increase, and without the various home lenders passing the full rate cut onto customers, people will not be sure whether now is a good time to buy or sell their house.

With jobs still at risk, and the unemployment rate still high, it is going to be hard to sell homes privately. So far now a lot of people are going to be playing the waiting game, first time buyers might even have harder times getting onto the property ladder with lenders probably only willing to offer 75% mortgages, and many present home owners in negative equity, they wouldn't be able to sell their houses even if they wanted to downsize!

The coming months will tell if the rate cut will encourage the housing market to be more buoyant and those we might see an increase in private house sales.