Are you rushing to complete your sale before Christmas?
Stop - find out why you should consider delaying until the New Year
The Christmas rush. No, we don't mean the rush to buy presents or even get the good Christmas tree or the turkey.
The Christmas rush is the immense pressure that comes just before Christmas to all homeowners in the middle of the legal process of selling their homes. If your sale is with the solicitors, you, too, are likely trying to decide whether you will be in your new home for Christmas or your current one. Should you even bother to decorate, considering you may have to pack it up again when you move?
Because everywhere will close down for a break at Christmas, a decision needs to be made. Will you be moving before or after?
If your legal process is nearing completion now, you may decide that you and everyone in your chain want to push for completion BEFORE Christmas so that you can all have Christmas in your new homes.
As a result, solicitors, mortgage lenders and estate agents get a rush of people trying to move their sales along as quickly as possible to complete the transaction before Christmas.
But, consider for a moment what that could mean.
Pressure and stress. If you push your sale because you want to complete it before Christmas, you will be adding pressure on yourself and everyone involved. Adding a deadline to anything will add stress.
You are walking into the unknown. There are always teething problems when you move into a new property because it's unfamiliar. At the most wonderful time of the year, you will have to get to grips with a new oven that you've hardly cooked with. As well as a new shower, boiler, alarm system etc.
Time. It is already a busy time of year. Do you need to add packing and unpacking to that extending to-do list?
Decorating. Statistics show that a considerable percentage of us intend to decorate a property when we move in, even if it doesn't need it; it gives us the feeling of ownership, and we have put our stamp on the property. Is Christmas the right time to get the paintbrushes out amongst everything else?
So if you decide to skip these things for the first few months or so whilst you get through Christmas, will you feel like you have had Christmas in your new home, or will it feel like you have spent it in an Airbnb? Because it is all new to you, and you haven't settled in yet. Perhaps the most magical time of the year will not be quite so magical?
And there are other benefits to delaying completion until after Christmas.
Aside from reducing stress and giving you fewer tasks on your to-do list, when you return in the new year, the solicitors will have fewer files to deal with, and the removal companies will have fewer bookings to work around. There will be more flexibility in the actual date you complete because there will not be so much competition from other movers.
Why not consider holding back and enjoying the last Christmas in your current home before embarking on the new property in the new year when everything is a little less hectic?
Suppose the legal process is almost ready for completion. In that case, you could exchange contracts before Christmas so that your January completion date is set and you have peace of mind that your sale is secure and legally binding.
There really is no rush. If everyone in your connected chain agrees, sit back and enjoy Christmas. Then it's all systems go in the new year when you have a little more time to prepare.
Enjoy yourself! Merry Christmas!