There are certain phrases our industry seems to discover every few months and then collectively refuses to let go of. Before you know it, every conference panel and LinkedIn post is talking about exactly the same thing from a slightly different angle. At the moment, that phrase appears to be ‘broken housing chains’.
Now, don’t get me wrong, chains are certainly breaking. I just wonder whether we’re paying attention to the wrong bit because the collapse itself isn’t normally where the story starts. It’s simply where everyone notices it.
A SLOWER MARKET CHANGES THE RULES
The latest Zoopla figures paint a more subdued picture than they did earlier in the year. Buyer demand is running 15% below last year and sales agreed are 7% lower. It would be easy to look at those numbers and conclude the market simply isn’t moving. I’m not sure that’s the most useful way of reading them.
To me, they say something slightly different. When transactions become harder to complete, every one that is progressing becomes more valuable. There are fewer opportunities to recover if a buyer walks away, fewer people waiting in the wings and much less room for avoidable delays.
I think that’s quite an important contrast because it changes the way chains behave. A few years ago, if a transaction slowed down, everyone sighed, complained about solicitors for a bit and eventually carried on.
A few years ago, if a transaction drifted, everyone sighed, blamed solicitors for a bit and, more often than not, eventually carried on. Today, a valuation takes longer than expected, enquiries become more involved or an onward purchase slips by a couple of weeks and suddenly confidence starts to ebb away. Nobody has necessarily done anything wrong, but the transaction feels noticeably more uncertain than it did a fortnight earlier.
CHAINS DON’T SUDDENLY FAIL. THEY LOSE MOMENTUM
That’s why I’m not convinced we should really be talking about broken chains at all. Most chains don’t suddenly snap. They wobble.
People begin asking for revised completion dates. Vendors wonder whether they should remarket. Buyers start browsing property portals again, almost out of habit. Mortgage offers edge closer to expiry. None of those developments is especially dramatic in isolation, but together they chip away at something that’s remarkably difficult to rebuild once it’s gone: confidence.
I’m beginning to think momentum is actually one of the most valuable assets in any property transaction, although it’s probably the one people talk about least. Once buyers stop believing a purchase is progressing, they naturally begin protecting their own position. Frankly, most of us probably would.
That, for me, is where brokers can prove their worth because the instinct is often to think about bridging once the transaction has already become critical. By then you’re trying to recover something that has been meandering for weeks.
It might be recognising that an onward purchase is becoming the weak point in the chain. It might be a probate sale where nobody can confidently pin down timings, refurbishment works that have overrun or simply a chain with so many moving parts that one delay inevitably creates another. None of those situations automatically requires bridging, but all of them deserve a conversation before somebody decides to walk away.
I’ve always thought bridging works best when it removes uncertainty rather than reacts to it. Used that way, it isn’t about rescuing a failed transaction. It’s about taking one dependency out of the equation before it has the opportunity to affect everything else.
Obviously, the fundamentals don’t change. The loan still has to make sense. The exit still has to be credible. Speed should never replace sensible underwriting because one doesn’t cancel out the other. If anything, they become even more important when the market gives you less room for error.
LOOKING BEYOND THE COLLAPSE
Perhaps that’s why I think we’ve ended up focusing on the wrong part of the story. A broken chain is the outcome, not the problem. The real problem is everything that happened beforehand but didn’t quite feel serious enough to address at the time.
In a market where transactions are taking longer and opportunities are harder to replace, preserving momentum has become every bit as important as creating it. Brokers who recognise the early signs of uncertainty and deal with them before confidence starts to fade won’t just save more transactions. They’ll give their clients a much better chance of completing in a market that has become considerably less forgiving.
