Downsizing Property Search Service

Downsizing – terrible word, but a great opportunity.

At Stacks, we have been helping people make one of the most important decisions of their lives for well over 30 years. Yes, the choice of a family home to make a nest is important, but where to enjoy life once you have raised a family is just as crucial.

Retirement or semi-retirement itself brings new challenges and decisions to be made. You want to look at all your options

Our first job is to sit down with you at home and talk about property. We want to know what it means to you, how it fits with the family, but most importantly we want to talk to you about what you are looking for over the next stage of your life.

Is it lock-up and leave? Do you want a slightly bigger garden? Do you want a smaller garden?! What access to services are important?

And then geography is important. You might want to stay close to friends and connections, being closer to the family might be important.

There is a lot to talk about. We like to think of ourselves as ‘property doctors’ – able to give solid, guiding advice based on helping others for many years. Those questions that have been going round and round in your head for many years can often be answered in ten minutes.

Once a brief has been established, we are going to get out and about, and test that brief.

You can leave all the estate agents to us. We have day-to-day dealings with them and it is our job to badger them constantly on your behalf to come up with the right property. As you will know, most properties that they produce do not match your criteria. We will go and view properties that look as if they might suit you. Most won’t and we will save you the bother of having to go and view them yourself.

Once properties of interest have been identified, we will arrange viewing days for you to view the property with us. We will deal with all the arrangements, book the viewings, collect you from home/the station etc. and accompany you so you can concentrate on the properties, without being sold to by the estate agent.

Finding the right place is in some ways the easy bit. First, you have got to really make sure that it is the right property. We will take you back for second viewing, a third, fourth, as many as you want.

Negotiation is about information and all the time we will be collating information about the property, the vendors’ position, what the estate agent thinks. And not only is information important for negotiation, it is also critical to help you make an informed decision. How much work do you want to do? How much will that cost? Will you get planning? What’s happening next door? What’s happening in the neighbourhood? We will find answers to all these questions.

Back to negotiation – our job is to fight your corner. The estate agent and their client want to get as much money out of you as they can. We want them to get as little as possible. So we negotiate hard on your behalf.

Once an offer has been accepted, then the fun really starts. Currently 40% of agreed deals are falling apart because of issues arising during the conveyancing process. Most of the problems are resolvable if somebody is prepared to put the effort in, which we are.

We will work with your surveyor, solicitor (and we know the good local ones) closely to make sure that the i’s are dotted and the t’s crossed to make sure that the property and title are sound and strong.

When you have moved in, we live locally and are to help in any way we can. Builders, architects, groundworks, landscaping? Yes, we know where to go to.