What is a property chain?

What is a property chain?

It's something you may well hear a lot about during the house buying process.

A term in which can cause the biggest frustrations when buying or selling a property. If you're buying a "chain free" property, then that's amazing.

More often than not however, you will be tied in with other buyers and sellers, in a sequence of property transactions that all have to come together at exactly the same time. So at the start of the chain there is someone who is buying, maybe they're a first time buyer, buy to let investor, or someone who has nothing to sell. At the end these are the people just looking to sell, whether that's an investor selling up, somewhere empty or a new build. In the middle you have the links which can be numerous.

A chain itself will only move as quick as the slowest link. Unfortunately a chain can collapse at any point too. This could be completely out of your control, someone may have lost their job, had a separation, bereavement, or might have just changed their mind. You can avoid a chain. If you’re fortunate enough to be selling a property and you’ve got more than one interested party to choose from, maybe the better buyer is a first time buyer, investor or someone not needing to sell. And if you’re looking to buy onwards and you’re struggling to find a home because of the chain behind you, it could be beneficial to break the chain, maybe temporarily just move in with family.