Agents wanted to work with high-funded quick buy company

A relaunched home buying service says it wants to partner with agents to unlock sales if the housing market deteriorates.

The service - called Spring, and previously known as National Property Trade - says it has an annual buying capacity of around £300m and will join the current field of quick-buy companies.

Spring describes itself as acting as the property buyer, and taking on full responsibility for the purchase of the vendor’s home and its onward transaction. 

“It is totally transparent, with the Spring price promise meaning that if it subsequently sells the home within six months for a higher price than the valuation, it will pay the seller the difference (less the home buying fee)” says a statement from the company. 

Spring says it aims to give just one valuation price to the majority of the properties it handles “removing the multiple price drops historically associated with buying firms.”

It says its new business model is “typically paying full market value for the property with circa 10 to 15 per cent in fees.”

Homes sold to Spring do not need to be renovated or prepared for sale, with Spring able to make an initial offer for most properties within 48 hours - it claims to complete in as little as seven days or a date that that suits the seller. It suggests that most properties will require just one physical visit by a RICS surveyor. 

It says: “Spring can actively support both agents and property developers with sales and part exchange programmes, particularly with unlocking time consuming chains. Its level of funding, believed to be one of the highest in the UK for this type of business, provides the ability to complete on transactions quickly, allowing partners to make their sales and commission.”

It says that working with agents it can act as a full part-exchange provider or as a consultant advising on funding, customer experience and marketing.

It claims that a study on its behalf by Atomik Research, looking at 1,000 sellers who had sold a home in the past 24 months, revealed 47 per cent had experienced an offer falling-through while 24 per cent had to change their completion date to accommodate the buyer.

The research also claimed the average UK home sale took eight and half months to complete from the day the property was placed on the market, with an average of 18 viewings undertaken. 

Some 28 per cent of sellers also stated they would have been willing to pay up to 10 per cent in fees for the guarantee of a quick sale, with one in 10 willing to pay over 10 per cent.

“At a business to business level, we see our service as an additional item in the sales toolkit for agents and developers, as evidenced by our existing partnerships with a range of leading operators” says Cormac Henderson, Spring’s chief executive. 

“We are actively looking to develop a panel of trusted agent partners, with our backing allowing us to structure bespoke deals and agreements to help unlock sales at various levels of the market.”