If you have spent any time looking at properties for sale, either as a prospective buyer or for research before listing your own property for sale, then you may be familiar with the term ‘cash buyers only’.
Cash property buyers are a part of the property market that should not be ignored as they can offer sellers some genuine benefits over more traditional buyers using mortgages.
Carry on reading our article to find out more about how cash buyers work and whether you should consider selling your property to a cash buyer.
Cash buyer meaning
If a property is advertised as cash buyers only, then that means the sellers are only accepting offers from buyers who have the funds to complete the sale without the use of a mortgage.
This term usually only applies to individuals or businesses with the funds to hand when an offer is placed, and so if any funds need to be raised in order to purchase the property, then this no longer counts as being a cash buyer.
Common ways some of these ‘almost’ cash buyers raise funds would be through:
- The sale of a property
- Waiting for an inheritance
- A lump sum payment or bonus that is coming but has not arrived yet
Whether a buyer is a cash buyer or not will be confirmed by conveyancers before the purchase begins during anti-money laundering (AML) checks.
Why use cash buyers only
There are multiple reasons why sellers might want to exclusively seek cash buyer offers.
One of the main advantages of cash buyers is the speed at which transactions can progress. There is no need to wait for drawn-out communications between mortgage lenders and conveyancers as there are no mortgage lenders involved, meaning that sales can complete much faster.
Another plus for accepting a cash offer on your property is that the sale is more likely to complete. House sales falling through are frequent occurrences and can destroy property chains, with a large reason for them occurring being mortgage issues. With a cash buyer, not only can you more comfortably rely on them to progress through the sale to completion, but you also don’t have to worry about long, ongoing chains because they are not waiting to sell their property to fund the purchase.
Another reason why you would have to pursue cash buyers is if your property cannot be mortgaged. It may be the case that you own your property outright but it, unfortunately, has some issues with its structure. A mortgage lender may be unwilling to lend funds to allow buyers to purchase your property in this situation, so you would have to seek cash buyers.
Disadvantages of cash buyers
Selling to a cash buyer does come with some compromises, though. For example, you should expect to receive lower offers than you would if the buyer was using a mortgage. Think of this as a trade off for the added security and efficiency that come with a cash purchase.
Buyers are still encouraged to perform searches and conduct a property survey before spending such a large sum of money. Therefore, any issues that would have been brought to light if you were to accept an offer from a mortgage buyer will still be found.
And of course, accepting an offer from a cash buyer does not mean you are completely safe from the buyer backing out of the sale – it is only less likely for that to happen.
Cash buyer, no chain – how long will it take to complete in the UK
The average time to completion for a cash buyer in the UK with no chain is 6-8 weeks. This is 6-8 weeks from when the offer is accepted through the exchange of contracts and then completion.
At EasySale, we can provide an even faster service than this. There have been purchases in the past where we have exchanged contracts in less than two days, so if a customer of ours requires an exceptionally fast service then we can do everything in our power to complete as fast as possible.
EasySale cash property buyers
If for any reason you are considering selling to a cash buyer then get in touch with our team at EasySale and we can provide you with a fantastic no-obligation offer for your consideration, often within just 24 hours. We aim to provide a competitive quote that is between 75-85% of market value. We also have our own independent solicitors that are pre-vetted and ready for you to work with. Please bear in mind that our solicitors will be different to yours, so there is no potential for a conflict of interest.
