The gap between ‘perfect’ and ‘average’ is widening creating opportunities for some buyers who can make a less than ideal property work for them.  Those who are searching for perfection  need to be aware that buyers outstrip the modest amount of blemish free houses coming to the market and therefore they must be prepared not to drag their heels and expect to pay a fair price.  Not all vendors need to sell, especially in rural areas.  An increasing number of owners of country houses, equestrian property, farms and estates are dipping their toes in the water by putting their homes on the market ‘quietly’, these properties will not be found on the internet or in estate agents windows but I know where they are.  So  remember that many vendors of rural property will not be tempted by cheeky offers.

The market at the moment is hard to read and the true values of properties are very hard to ascertain and this situation is likely to continue but do not let that put you off entering the market, there are deals to be had if you know where to look.

Despite the Cuts, no let-up in the Credit Crunch and European banking woes being forced into the open, properties are changing hands.

Markets are about people, and people have to move house – there are now hundreds of thousands of people who might have expected to have moved over the last 3 or 4 years, who haven’t.

Many continue to sit on their hands and do nothing. Interest rates remain low, people can afford to do nothing. That means a great many houses potentially for sale, but not on the market, so there are unlikely to be as many properties openly available for sale as people expect.  In many parts of London and the UK there remains a shortage of stock.

However, the suspension of HIPS’s has allowed agents to go back to the time-honoured practice of ‘marketing quietly’ e.g . seeing what interest there may be in a property, without going to the expense of marketing and brochures. 

The clever vendors are aggressively marketing their houses with good agents at the right price – a keen, competitive, fair and reasonable price.

And, at the same time, they will aggressively get out and into the market to find and secure the property they want to move into.

On the assumption that most people have to buy AND sell a property, it’s a great time to be moving. The market looks likely to remain stable over 2011 – potentially a good year to make a considered and rational move.

You do want to move, don’t you?

In late September a couple of properties appeared on the market and produced a flurry of buyers and offers above the guide came in quickly. These properties are not huge but they both provide a brilliant combination of great location, character house, land, and outbuildings not converted. This situation endorses the fact that purchasers are buying properties and that desirable properties remain in short supply, so buyers must not be complacent. Increasingly I am invited to view properties that are on the market very quietly due to vendor’s uncertainty but there is a market in which deals are being made despite nervous buyers and sellers.

I have always encouraged clients not to focus too much on a property as a commodity, it must also have a value as a home to fulfil their needs and wishes, and this is even more important during current market conditions where buyers are expecting a bargain. The property must be as close to your idea of perfection as possible, and often the value of the property to the purchaser in terms of enhanced lifestyle and access to what is important, will take the shine off the quest for a bargain. Having said that, at the moment there is more chance of securing the perfect property being sold by a vendor under pressure, resulting in your idyll at a bargain price.