Need to sell your Doncaster home by a deadline? Start by working backwards
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Understandably, most homeowners want their property to sell quickly. For some people, selling quickly isn't just desirable, it’s essential. There's a date they need to meet.
Perhaps there's an onward move, a job relocation, an inherited or empty property to deal with, or simply a personal commitment that means having the sale completed by a particular date matters.
Whatever the reason, selling by a deadline requires a different approach from putting a property on the market and hoping everything falls into place.
The starting point should be the date you need the property transaction completed, not the date you want to put the house on the market.
Finding a buyer isn't the same thing as selling your house
This distinction catches sellers out.
The latest Hometrack UK House Price Index says homes that successfully find buyers currently take an average of 44 days from first appearing on a portal to going Sold Subject to Contract.
But Hometrack defines that measurement as the period from first listing to Sold STC. It isn't the time taken to legally complete the property transaction.
Once you've accepted an offer, there is still conveyancing to complete. That means somebody with a firm deadline shouldn't assume they'll meet it simply because they've found a buyer.
Zoopla’s figures put the full journey from first listing to completion at an average of 185 days — around 25 weeks, or just under six months. And reaching completion is far from guaranteed: separate Zoopla research found that 44% of UK homes listed in the previous three years failed to sell, making realistic planning especially important when a deadline matters. See Zoopla’s guide to the average selling timeline.
Work backwards from your deadline
Imagine you need the property transaction completed by a particular Friday. Ask what needs to happen before then.
Your conveyancer needs to have completed their work. Any mortgage-dependent purchaser needs their funding ready. Any enquiries have to be answered. And, where there's a chain, the other transactions need to be ready as well.
The less flexibility you have around the final date, the less comfortable you may be relying on factors outside your control.
Price according to your priorities
There's an important difference between 'I'd like to sell soon' and 'I must complete by this date'.
If there's no deadline, you may decide to test a more ambitious asking price and wait. With a fixed deadline, attracting serious buyers quickly becomes more important.
Hometrack says realistic asking prices are key in the current market because competition for buyers has increased. Its research also found properties listed below estimated value were considerably more likely to find a buyer within 90 days than homes carrying substantially higher asking prices.
Understand how much certainty each selling route gives you
A traditional estate-agent sale can be the right choice when maximising sale proceeds is the priority, but the seller can't completely control how quickly a buyer appears or what happens in the buyer's chain.
Auction provides a different route and may suit certain properties and sellers.
A third option is a direct sale to a property-buying company such as House Buyer Bureau.
The important comparison for someone facing a deadline isn't simply 'Which option sounds fastest?' It's 'Which option gives me the level of certainty I require?'
When somebody comes to us with a deadline, the important thing is understanding the date they actually need to complete.
Speed and certainty aren't quite the same thing. There's little benefit in being told a property can sell quickly if you're still dependent on a buyer's mortgage or another transaction further down a chain completing on time.
For some people getting the highest possible price is worth accepting that uncertainty and waiting. For somebody who genuinely has to complete by a particular date, certainty can become much more valuable.
Don't leave Plan B until your deadline is looming
Even if you decide that an estate-agent sale is the best choice, think in advance about what you'll do if it hasn't worked by a particular date.
Work backwards: deadline, latest acceptable completion date, contingency point, initial marketing period.
That gives you a point at which to reassess rather than continuing indefinitely and hoping everything completes in time.
It's also worth understanding the alternatives before reaching that point.
If you're working towards a deadline, you don't have to wait until the last minute to explore a direct sale.
You can have a free, no-obligation chat with one of House Buyer Bureau's property buyers, explain the deadline you're working towards and discuss your options. HBB can provide an indicative cash offer during that initial call, giving you a figure and an alternative route to consider.
There's no obligation to proceed. You might decide to continue with an estate-agent sale, but knowing what the alternative looks like means you can make that decision before your deadline becomes urgent.
If you don't have a deadline, keeping a property on the market for longer may be a perfectly rational decision.
But when you must complete by a certain date, judging a sale purely by the price offered can overlook another valuable element of the transaction: whether the sale is likely to happen when you need it to.
The best selling method therefore depends not only on what your property is worth, but also on what certainty is worth to you.