Looking to sell your property portfolio?

Whether you wish to sell for tax purposes, ill-health or just simply because you need to off-load your buy-to-let portfolio, we are here to help you.

From wanting to retire to needing to dispose or liquidate some capital, there are many reasons why a landlord would want to sell their portfolio. It may be either a portion or your entire portfolio, and sometimes a few investors will have an exit strategy planned for this instance.

If you are in any of these situations you may need to be aware of all of available choices and consider what is most important: is it selling up as soon as possible or is it getting the maximum amount of money for your property portfolio that you can?

Although it is possible to sell any property portfolio through a high street estate agent it can become quite fragmented and time consuming with separate sales perhaps all happening at the same time. As you would imagine these individual sales with separate legal parties to contend with would certainly cause an unwelcome headache. It may make sense in some circumstances to do this but for most vendors it would be far too awkward and complex to consider, and the overall individual selling cost of the portfolio could possibly be more than selling it in bulk.What do I do now?

Instead, the more regular approach is to sell your property portfolio to a professional investor or on the landlord market. This could

ensure that all your hard work building the portfolio would be cared by professionals, and your tenants are in good hands. Amateurs may not be experienced enough to cope with acquiring so many residents all at one time. Yes, once you have detached your emotions from your portfolio you can move on to sell, foremost, every investor’s aim is to achieve the best asking price, because it is purely business at the end of the day.There are many options that you can use to sell your property stock; it could be either in bulk wholesale, to investors or landlords directly, an approved auction specialist or an investment agency.

We, at Quick Property Sale, have no restriction on the type of portfolio we can purchase, from a small two unit-size investment up to a much larger property portfolio – residential, commercial or a mixed property portfolio. Quick Property Sale has purchased residential and commercial portfolios from builders, investor groups and individual landlords.

Top tip: to be able to sell your portfolio it would be prudent to engage an experienced solicitor who has executed property portfolio sales before.

Preparing your portfolio for sale

No one else is more interested in the sale of your property portfolio than you are. Show casing your property portfolio, improving appearance and carrying out any obvious maintenance and repair work will enhance any possible curb appeal. Even small considerations such as removing tenant’s old refuse, weed spraying, a garden tidy-up, cleaning communal areas, replacing missing signs and house numbers etc. This will all certainly help with generating potential viewings and a quicker property sale.

Selling single investment properties over time

This is the process we use if you would prefer to sell individual investment properties rather than a full property portfolio. You may only want to sell a property per tax year to utilise and gain from your personal CGT (HMRC Capital Gains Tax) allowance.

Sell in one transaction

If you have accrued a buy to let housing stock then your exit strategy becomes more relevant as time goes by. Here we delve into four avenues that you can use to sell your portfolio:

Use an approved auction house

All types of properties, commercial premises, development land, property business and freeholds can be sold and purchased at auction. A property portfolio would fall into the ‘property business’ category, this is because a portfolio is an income generating asset – similar to any other business. You can offer your properties for auction but that will not always guarantee a good price.

The auctioning process: The entire auctioning process for any auction lot can take around 5 to 10 weeks to complete. This time duration includes a month before the auction date (viewings) and a month afterwards. The main advantage of selling a property portfolio at auction is that as soon as the gavel drops – it creates a contract, this seals a commitment and becomes a definite sale, so there are no U-turns for the buyer or vendor​.

At this stage the purchaser has to deposit 10% immediately to the auctioneer, they then have to complete the sale (by paying the outstanding 90% balance) within usually 28 days from the date of the auction. If the buyer does not complete the sale within the time frame they can lose their 10% deposit.

Choosing an auctioneer: Read reviews or use a recommended auction house that specialises in auctioning commercial units, and check that they are proficient at selling portfolios, on a regular basis. If the right kind of buyer is not in the auction room (or bidding by proxy) on the day you could lose out on a sale.

Your choice of auctioneer may depend on where you live or where the portfolio is located. Any established auctioneer should explain their selling process to you so you can get a thorough understanding, they will market your properties via their website, web portals and auction catalogue. Request a selling quotation – so you can compare this with other auction property services’ fees.

Also, many large estate agent chains will have an in-house auction service so you could take a look at these.