What is the biggest mistake you will make in this buyers’ market?

We are currently in a buyers’ market.

It’s the one thing that everyone is agreed on and the press is full of stories about it.

And yet, the great irony is that despite it being a buyers’ market, i.e. a time when you should be buying, most people are waiting and watching. Meanwhile, in a sellers’ market, buyers fall over themselves to buy – in part because they missed the last buyers’ market…

So, how does this happen and how can you avoid it?

Firstly, despite proclaiming a buyers’ market, the press and pretty much everyone else will focus on all the negatives. In this instance, you can take your pick from amongst others:

1. Tariffs
2. Stock market uncertainty
3. “High” interest rates
4. “Affordability issues”
5. Prices might go lower
6. Non-doms leaving
7. Higher taxes

This is human nature at play and you will see the polar opposite in a sellers’ market when buyers are only focussed on the positives and are worried about prices only going up. But do you think it is possible to make an intelligent decision if you become swamped by either negativity or positivity?

Let’s look at most buyers’ number one concern: that you buy a property and the market falls further, so you feel stupid that you overpaid.

After all no-one wants to overpay and this is very sensible. As I repeat ad nauseam, it is essential that you remain patient and selective but be in a position to move swiftly when the right opportunity arises.

Unfortunately, what most buyers do is stop actively looking, wait for the bottom of the market and hope that a great opportunity falls into their lap. There are several issues with this:

1. It is impossible to know when the market is at the bottom. You can only tell after the fact, i.e. once prices have started going up – and even then, most buyers think that the initial price increases in a recovery are “a blip”. So, they wait for prices to fall but, instead, watch them climb higher, so miss the bottom of the market by some distance and then buy in a sellers’ market…
2. The property market is very different from the stock market where you are simply clicking a buy or sell button with very clear pricing. In the property market, individuals will have different reasons for selling and have different levels of motivation. The “market” does not have to be at the bottom for you to find the best opportunity, i.e. your ideal home or investment property that can be acquired at a very favourable price because the seller is highly motivated.
3. If you are not actively looking, how can you expect to find these best opportunities?

The sad truth is that most buyers are paralysed by fear which is why they completely miss the buyers’ market. This is unsurprising because the media and therefore pretty much everyone else is telling you that buying now will be a disaster. Unfortunately, these are the very same people who will tell you in the future that now was a good time to buy!

It would be easy to say that it simply takes courage to buy in this market, but that is misleading. You only need courage if you don’t know what you are doing because that means that you are relying on luck.

However, if you are actively looking for properties, understand valuations and are good at negotiating, then you don’t have to be courageous. You simply need to be selective and patient until you find the right opportunity and then you move with serious intent.

Because while you can never be sure that you are buying at the bottom of the market, you can give yourself a significant margin of safety. You can acquire a “best in breed” property at a discount knowing that when the market recovers, it is the sort of property that will dramatically outperform the market, because in a seller’s market there will be multiple buyers for it.

So, the people who succeed in a buyers’ market are not those who try to time the bottom of the market because that is futile and they miss it – how many times have you heard people say: “I wish I had bought back then”…

The people who succeed and acquire exceptional properties are those who are just trying to be smart. They know that they can’t spot the bottom of the market – while they might hit it that would be luck, so they know that, in reality, they will most likely miss it and by some distance.

Instead, they are actively searching for those great opportunities which give them the margin of safety to make a sensible purchase. These are the people who successfully take advantage of a buyers’ market. You stack the odds in your favour by minimising the downside risk while maximising the upside.

But you must follow the tested and proven strategies I reveal in my book, The Insider’s Guide To Acquiring £1m to £100m Property in London, if you want to find the best property your money can buy and then negotiate the lowest price possible.

If you would like a complimentary copy of the book, simply click here and leave your details.

Alternatively, if you are interested in acquiring a property in London but have questions about the market, you can reserve the final free Strategy Session available this month by emailing me at jeremy@mercuryhomesearch.com or calling 02034578855 (+442034578855 from outside the UK).

The session is a consultation with me to look at your plans and highlight your blindspots, so that you avoid the most expensive mistakes you will make. Please note that this is a consultation and I will not discuss how we help clients find the best property you can buy and negotiate the lowest price possible.

So to reserve the last free Strategy Session this month simply call 02034578855 (+442034578855 from outside the UK) or email me at jeremy@mercuryhomesearch.com.