Welcome to the September edition of The Exchange 2015.

With around 80 days until Christmas, you can feel the pressure building towards the end of this ‘year of 2 halves’.

Everyone now seems to agree that the first half of this year was different to what most people expected. It wasn’t until June that pipelines started to mature, new chains really started to build and, of course, it’s today’s deals that should complete before Christmas. We should all be mindful that if Christmas is the desired deadline, then we need to start seeing the deals come together soon.

It was interesting talking with a highly respected agent last week, as he admitted that many of his staff had less than 4 years’ experience and had never built a chain before. Understanding the difficulties of getting so many different parties to agree on dates is key to correctly judging the conversion of the pipeline.

In my recent article published in Property Industry Eye, I talk about how far people look to move away from their current property – with some surprising results. I found, using My Home Move’s Management Information, that 44% of people move between 150 and 300 miles from their current area, which might highlight the need to make sure a completion date is agreed by all parties as soon as possible.

Incidentally, our drive to ask clients to consider any other day but Friday for completion is beginning to pay off – with a broader spread of completions now happening during the week, and the more you can help the easier life can be for the clients. We have one particular conveyancer who has made this work to her considerable benefit – Friday’s are now far less stressful! Not surprisingly, her magical formula is being shared amongst her colleagues.

Stephen Hayter
Retail Sales Director