Thoughts, news and insights | London Property Consultants

Prime London Property: Off-market sales

A short Interview with Simon Barnes about off-market sales

1. Is the concept of an ‘off-market’ sale good or bad from the seller’s perspective? Does it, for example, give their property a ‘mystique’ which can add value to the property?

Good, in that it enables a quiet sale without everyone knowing your business. In the current economic climate, where often assumptions are made that sales are forced for financial reasons and therefore can be bought at well below the advertised price – selling off market, usually prevents this. Also if the property doesn’t sell, it can be withdrawn and re marketed at a later date as a fresh property.

Do buyers get a disservice from off-market sales, because presumably many will not know of the properties being on sale? [Read more…]

by Simon Barnes

Phone signals and broadband access

I’ve never across anyone in central London who was worried about mobile phone signals or broadband access; I would seriously doubt their seriousness about buying if they chose to reject a property on those grounds. After all, there are technical solutions readily available to improve broadband speeds and wifi if you wish to improve a service and money have the budget.

by Simon Barnes

Is there an off market ‘kipper season’?

I was recently asked if summer is a quite time for the London Property Market.

I would say 90% of the business I do is off market, where time and budget are not important and so the timescale of a sale can be much longer. As a result, those properties that are sold off market are often done so because the owners do not want to be seen to advertise their property for six months or longer, which can often be how long a property takes to sell at this level of the market, due to different motivations amongst the buyers.

At the very top end of the market, say over £10million, most of the activity is conducted in this way, but the way buyers operate is very different from the conventional market.

[Read more…]

Contact H. Barnes & Co – Tel: 020 7499 3434