I want to live in Brighton & Hove: Break those chains

Last week whilst filming Latest Homes live we had a great guest, Kim White from Westbeach Properties. Kim is mainly a letting agent and on this occasion she pointed out an area of the lettings industry that we had never really considered in any depth.

For a great many people in the UK renting a home carries a stigma, it’s simply not done – which is strange as for the great many Europeans renting your home is the norm. We suppose this harks back to that old “British” thing class. But since the financial dips of the late 20th century more and more people are renting their home, not only out of necessity but out of choice.

An ideal solution for many

Kim now suggests that there is another great reason to consider taking on a let. Let’s suppose that you have had your home on the market and having found a keen buyer you find that you are trapped in that bête noir of all property transactions: “the chain”. Yes we all know the grief that they can cause, the number of failed sales and purchases that lie in their wake.

So your buyer wants in and you need to get out. So get out says Kim. Get out, make your sale, bank the proceeds and rent a home on a short term basis. Pack your clothes and a few essentials, put your furniture into storage and find a let, maybe a short term let or perhaps do a deal with an agent on a holiday let. Many holiday home landlords will look favourably on a longer let, especially in the winter months, after all, there will be far lower overheads than occur when seeing in and out short term guests.

It seems such a simple idea that we were all surprised that this is not a more commonly taken route. Of course where an agent deals in both sales and lets this could be a very simple process, matching vendors in chains to landlords with a suitable property. Kim has facilitated such a deal very recently and worked with another agent to make it work. It’s a small world and many of the city’s agents not only know each other but are friends, and this kind of cooperation could be and ideal solution for many.