Questions the Estate Agent might ask.
- Catch 22 – any price you offer will be lower than we can recommend they sell for?
- In no circumstances will your clients have to sell for less than a price you recommend they accept (MV)
- The home owner never has to sell for less than MV
- What is CHAIN FREE®?
- A chain-avoiding insurance type arrangement (available through the Home Owners Plan™) for a Facility Period of 20 weeks from DataSource Valuation.
- IMPORTANT POINT: Your clients can use CHAIN FREE® to say they are a Cash Buyer to secure the house they want to buy at the best price (recouping our Fee/1% of the Fall Back Price®) and will not need to take the Fall Back Price® (because your firm will have sold their house for more)
- If your client decides to take the Fall Back Price® (because they can’t wait for your firm to sell their house for their Asking Price) the Drawdown Documents include a Sale Contract (our Legal Department will add the buyers name) and Transfer for your client to sign so we can sell their house.
- How does it work?
- Sellers won’t want it until they desperately need it, when a sale goes wrong or if they can’t sell for more and then will be offered a knockdown price?
- That is what happens with old hat schemes promoted by vulture funds praying on desperate sellers e.g. we’ll buy any house fast and for cash.
- The Conundrum
- CHAIN FREE® is a chain-avoiding insurance type arrangement enabling the seller to secure their next house with no legal commitment to sell their own and no legal commitment to take our finance.
- Telling the seller at the earliest opportunity about CHAIN FREE® is a defeatist message when they want my firm to provide a positive outlook?
- The purpose of CHAIN FREE® is to helps your customer quickly secure their next home against competition.
- An example of CHAIN FREE®?
- Your 90% LTV will be too low to interest my clients?
- It is a Fall Back Price® for 20 weeks while your firm is selling their house for their Asking Price
- Your client never has to sell for less than MV
- Because your client knows they can take 90% LTV in 5 days they can say they are a cash buyer with no legal commitment to sell their house
- What advantage is CHAIN FREE® to my firm?
- Fees
- To secure customers selling and applicants buying against competition.
- How can my firm reduce the cost to the customer?
- IMPORTANT POINT: By bundling the £340 Administration Fee the seller pays us if they want to upgrade from DataSource Valuation to RICS Surveyors Valuation with your Agency Fee (your firm will recover £340 from the £1,000 Success Fee we pay your firm if you sell their house for more than the Fall Back Price®).
- Variations on a theme?
- Insurance type arrangement
- Makes sellers Proceedable Buyers for a 1% Fee (which they can recoup)
- We have seen many chain-mending schemes?
- CHAIN FREE® is a chain-avoiding solution not a chain-mending one
- Other Schemes
- What is the difference between CHAIN FREE® and CHAIN MENDER®?
- If the seller can’t sell won’t they switch agents?
- You have time to sell for their Asking Price
- Home owners will be most interested when you are least willing to make an offer and vice versa?
- Our Valuations are current and accurate
- How does CHAIN FREE® differ from Part Exchange/Assisted Move?
- Your clients do not have to sell within a restricted period and can decide not to sell at all (just using CHAIN FREE® to buy at a discount)
- We do not buy your clients house and do not take fees or commissions
- Your clients do not subjugate buying/selling decisions to third parties
- Disconnect between valuations?
- We do not require your Opinion of Valuation
- No reputational risk
- Our agency achieves fast sales?
- Clients living in houses up to £500,000 are particularly vulnerable to chains
- Those selling houses over £500,000 also want to secure before selling
- Tell me about your the RICS valuation?
- Our RICS Surveyors Valuations are for mortgage purposes (Red book)
- Will take account of how long the house has been on the market for sale (reference Rightmove)
- Valuations that are too optimistic/pessimistic benefit no one
- Valuation Auditor carries out checks to prove the process if challenged
- Contemporaneous valuation audits by reference to database records
- Your Surveyors Valuation vs. our Opinion of Valuation?
- IMPORTANT POINT: We do not ask for your Opinion of Valuation
- Surveyors behind the market vs. Agents envisaging price direction
- Cautious Surveyors vs. Optimistic Agents
- No point in serious disconnect between our RICS Surveyors Valuation and any Opinion of Valuation you may give your client
- Tell me about the DataSource Valuation?
- An AVM from Rightmove
- Set at a high confidence level
- If the seller takes the Fall Back Price® there will be a mortgage on their house when they make a mortgage application for the next property?
- IMPORTANT POINT: The new lender will ask the seller if they already have a mortgage.
- Your seller must answer “Yes” because a lender will ask them on completion “if there are other loans secured against another property?”
- Because the seller has said “Yes” the lender will ask for details.
- the seller should say that they “have non-recourse finance from Albani and therefore no mortgage commitment”.
- Are there mortgages for buyers?
- You can tell applicants buying where they can get VAL FREE® mortgages from selected lenders.
- Will sellers who buy their next house before you have sold theirs have to pay a higher rate of SDLT on the second property?
- Sellers will only pay (if applicable) the Standard Rate of SDLT
- We undertake to pay any Additional Rate of SDLT on the second property the seller buys
- What happens if our client is in a chain that has broken?
- You can offer them CHAIN MENDER®
- If the home owner makes their own Application how do if and when they have chosen our firm to sell their house?
- The home owner can only make an application when their house is on Rightmove for sale.
- The Offer Documents require the home owner to provide their Estate Agents (and solicitors) contact details.
- What are the time constraints?
- Do we need to train our staff?
- Product training available at our cost (to increase footfall and to earn additional fees).
- Suggestions for improving the estate agent and customer proposition?
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