We recently came across a nugget of advice from property investor James Gerrard on Instagram, and thought it was genuinely great advice for anyone selling their home, so we wanted to pass it on. We're not affiliated with James in any way; we just liked the point he made.
Most people sell a home only four or five times in their entire life. It's one of the biggest financial transactions you'll ever make, and yet, because you do it so rarely, it's easy to get it wrong.
James, a Property Week Award-winning investor who's bought and sold property worth tens of millions, put his finger on the single most common mistake he sees sellers make. It's not pricing. It's not staging. It's what happens the moment an offer lands.
The moment the offer comes in
When a seller finally gets that offer, the excitement takes over. You call the agent. You call your family. You call your closest confidant. And every one of those conversations is about the same thing: the price.
That's the trap. The price is only one part of the deal. What most sellers forget to ask are three questions that matter just as much:
- When will this buyer exchange?
- When will this buyer complete?
- How is this buyer actually financing the purchase?
Have they got a mortgage agreed? Have they got the cash? Has anyone asked for proof of funds?
Why most sellers never ask
Most agents don't bother to find this out. At the top end of the market, where transaction values are high, verifying a buyer's timeline and finances is standard practice. At the lower end, it's often skipped entirely.
That's a mistake. As a seller, you should insist on getting this information before you take your home off the market. An offer from a buyer who can't finance the deal, or won't be ready to exchange for months, isn't really an offer at all.
The exchange date is your secret weapon
Of the three questions, the exchange date is the one to watch most closely.
It's worth being clear: until you actually exchange contracts, everything is "an agreement to agree." It isn't legally binding. But the exchange date still matters enormously, because it's where your negotiating leverage comes from.
Here's how it plays out. A buyer typically agrees to exchange within, say, four to six weeks. Then the weeks pass. Searches take longer than expected. The mortgage paperwork drags. Suddenly they've blown past the date they promised and they haven't exchanged.
At that point, the balance of the negotiation quietly shifts in your favour.
You now have a completely fair point to make: "Hang on, you promised to buy our property on these terms. You said you'd exchange in four weeks and complete two months after. You've already failed to deliver on the very first thing you agreed to."
You've done nothing wrong. But the buyer has already let you down once. In psychological terms, it's now one–nil to you.
Turning leverage into protection
Why does this matter? Because of what usually comes next.
The survey comes back, and the buyer's surveyor tries to "chip" you, knock £1,500 (or whatever the figure is) off the agreed price on the back of some finding in the report.
This is the moment your leverage pays off. You can push back with a straight face:
"Look — you've kept me waiting a month. I've been holding this property, holding my mortgage financing, turning away other interest, and it's caused real stress. You're lucky we're still doing this deal at all."
Will leverage alone save you from a genuinely bad survey? No. If the roof is falling in, that's a real issue. But it does give you meaningfully better protection than a seller who has tracked nothing and simply hopes for the best.
The takeaway for sellers
Don't let the excitement of an offer make you forget the fundamentals. Before you celebrate the price:
- Get the exchange date in writing and hold the buyer to it.
- Understand the completion timeline so you can plan your own move.
- Verify the finances mortgage agreement in principle, proof of funds, the lot.
Do those three things and you're not just accepting an offer, you're managing a transaction. And when the inevitable curveballs come, you'll be negotiating from a position of strength instead of scrambling to hold the deal together.
All credit for the original advice goes to James Gerrard. This post is an independent share, we're not affiliated with or endorsed by James. You can follow him on Instagram or find out more at james-gerrard.com.