London Sellers Least Likely to find Cash Buyers

A cash buyer can often see many sellers reduce their asking price expectations as they often bring a far smoother, and quicker, transaction process.

Something that has become particularly desirable since the stamp duty holiday caused huge backlogs across the housing market.

But finding a cash buyer is not always easy and new research from Barrows and Forrester reveals that the chances of doing so depends very much on location.

Transaction data was analysed to find what percentage of homes have sold to cash buyers since the start of the year.

Across Great Britain, just 27% of homes sold so far this year went to cash buyers.

On a broad regional level, Scotland and England’s South West offer the best chance of finding a cash buyer.

In both regions, 33% of homes were sold to cash buyers.

At the other end of the table is London, where just 15% of homes have been bought by cash buyers.

At local district level, the research shows that, with 55.9% of homes being sold to cash buyers, North Norfolk offers the very best chance of finding a cash buyer in Britain.

East Lindsey, Lincolnshire, is close behind with cash buyers accounting for 55.3% of all sales.

In Dumfries and Galloway, Scotland, 52.9% of sales were completed in cash, in Torridge, Devon, cash buyers account for 50.4% of sales, and in Ceredigion, Wales, the figure is 50.2%.

At the other end of the spectrum, the list of districts where cash buyers account for the lowest percentage of purchases is dominated by London and its immediate surrounding area.

Barking and Dagenham has the lowest number of cash buyers at just 7.5%. In Slough, cash buyers account for 8.2% of all sales, in Lewisham it’s 8.4%, Waltham Forest 8.5%, and Greenwich 9.6%.

The remaining 15 districts with the lowest percentage of cash sales are also all found in London or its immediate surrounding area.

Managing Director of Barrows and Forrester, James Forrester, commented:

“Opting for a cash buyer will often mean a far smoother property transaction and so many sellers are happy to marginally adjust their asking price expectations for those buying without the help of a mortgage.

This puts cash buyers in a very strong position not only in terms of the price they will pay, but also where their chances of securing their dream home are concerned.

In a market where demand is extremely high and there are a huge number of buyers fighting it out for a limited amount of stock, the ability to flash the cash has never been more appealing to UK homesellers.”