HIPs get you moving faster

“We took a sample of over 16,000 vendors who had instructed estate agency branches within the Connells Group after 2nd August 2007, and who have subsequently exchanged contracts, before 12th October 2008,” explains Conveyancing Services Director Roger Wilson. “The sample included all sizes of second hand property and broadly similar numbers of those vendors who were legitimately exempt from needing a HIP and those who had a HIP produced for them.”

The findings, which were calculated using software in each branch which records every step of the transaction from putting a property on the market to completion, showed that vendors with HIPs exchanged contracts on their property on average six calendar days faster than those without a Home Information Pack.

Roger Wilson added: “This is the perfect time to assess the impact of HIPs, when we still have sellers progressing with sales, with or without a HIP. Many comments on HIPs have been subjective, based on someone’s “gut feel”, but this is objective data, based on a large sample, from all parts of England and Wales,”

“We know from experience that the longer there is between an offer being accepted and contracts exchanged, the more chance there is that the sale will not progress, so anything that reduces this period, particularly in the current market, has to be good for both buyers and sellers."