Your Right Move

Rightmove reports that with Christmas approaching, now is the time to put your property on the market to be sold before Christmas. We are all familiar with the propert slow down every year leading up to christmas, so there really is very little time left to start marketing, especially with changes in March 2012 stamp duty relief.

Rightmove director Miles Shipside, along with other property portals, building societies and banks also remember this month is 3 years on since the collapse of Lehman Brothers, which triggered the freeze in credit markets and wholesale mortgage funding, additionally the ending of first-time buyer stamp duty relief on the 25th of March 2012. The nil-rate threshold will fall from £250,000 to £125,000, so first-time buyers should be aware that they must have completed their purchase by that date to avoid paying stamp duty of 1% of their purchase price.

Rightmove reports that with only 98 days left until Christmas – Market Now

The director of Rightmove referes to the need to remember the Stamp Duty relief will soon be over and says: “Many buyers hope to move in before the Christmas break and enjoy their turkey in their new abode. With less than 100 days left before Christmas there’s an opportunity for some deadline-focused movers to do their bit to get some action into a market that is still pretty moribund three years after the financial fiascos that precipitated the downturn. It’s a delicate balance between the markets not being flooded with sellers desperate to sell and having enough of them to bring prices down to more affordable levels and encourage more buyer activity.”

He also mentioned the relative shortage of property coming to market continues to help underpin prices, with the average unsold stock per estate agency branch only slightly up from three years ago, at 78 properties.

So with these current market conditions and the 94 day average time a property is on the market, sellers seeking to tie up a deal in the 98 days left before Christmas need to take action now to undercut and out-promote their competition and get their property sold.