Guide to Buying a Property for Buyer’s

Prior to any decisions of where to live and what type of home to get, you need to plan and prioritise your finances, so that you can understand your budget. During your planning stage, you should take into consideration the costs of buying a property, the costs of moving home and the type of mortgage you would like.

For expert financial advice, James Anderson recommends IMC Financial Services, a business partner for over 20 years that have helped thousands of our customers to financially plan their future.

James Anderson has been working in the property sector for 30 years and our knowledge of the local housing market is what sets us ahead of all other estate agents.

As a prime estate agency with offices in Barnes, East Sheen, Mortlake, Putney and Putney Hill that are open seven days a week, until 9 pm weekdays, we are confident that we will find your perfect home.

Once you have decided which property you wish to make an offer on, inform the Sales Manager or Sales Negotiator who has been looking after you and they will then speak with their client and hopefully, at the end of the negotiation period, a price has been agreed.

Once you find a property that you are interested in, book a viewing online (if the property is being advertised on our website) or just by calling our local Sales office. Make sure you view all the properties you are interested in, just so that you can get a real feel for the local housing stock in order for you to judge which is the most appropriate property for you.

Our expert team will support you in every step of the viewing, providing you with important details of the property and insights into the local area. We provide accompanied viewings seven days a week, until 9 pm on weekdays and 5 pm at weekends.

The fast-paced environment of life doesn’t allow for time to be wasted, scanning the web and the various portals, containing thousands of properties for sale, in hope of finding the perfect property. The reality is, your dream property might not even reach the portals, due to the vast buyer’s network available in-house. Therefore, it is vital that you register with our local James Anderson office, allowing you to be placed on the very first searches we carry out to find the most suitable buyers for our client’s homes.

If you decide not to, you will miss out on the benefits this brings you, and you will find yourself hunting for a property in a sea full of buyers doing the same.

Now that you have agreed on an offer on a property, it is vital that you get a solicitor or conveyancer to handle all the legal work in transferring the ownership of the property to you. This sometimes can be arranged through the company that is providing you with financial guidance. Whoever is providing you with the mortgage finance will also need to instruct a solicitor so it will be more cost-efficient to ensure that the same solicitor acts for you personally as well as the mortgage company.

A survey of the condition of the property will be completed, and the property will be checked for any problems that might affect the cost of the purchase – including checking with the local authority and Environment Agency for major problems with the property.

With the survey completed, the surveyor may raise some concerns about the property which you may wish to consider…

James Anderson’s 30 years of experience has taught us a lot. We strive to ensure that your concerns are heard by the seller, avoiding situations where the seller withdraws the property from the market or accepts another offer. We provide expert advice for both parties, and our goal is to secure a successful negotiation.

Once your mortgage has been issued and once your solicitor has investigated the title and raised their enquiries with the seller then you will be in a position to exchange contracts with the seller, provided your solicitor has also received the search from the local authority. A deposit, which is normally 10% of the property’s value will need to be paid to your solicitor prior to exchanging contracts.

Once the contracts have been exchanged a completion date or moving date will be set at the same time.