Should I part-exchange my house with a developer?

In a slower market this option gets pushed harder, and it is worth understanding properly rather than dismissing or accepting on the spot. It genuinely solves real problems. It also has a price, and that price is not always spelled out.

What is part exchange on a new build?

Part exchange is an arrangement where a housebuilder buys your existing home and puts its agreed value towards the purchase of one of their new properties. You stay in your current home until the new one is finished, then move once, on a single completion date.

The developer becomes your buyer. They are not part of a chain, they are not waiting on a mortgage, and they will not pull out because a survey unsettled them. They then sell your old home on the open market in their own time.

How much do developers actually offer?

Less than the open market, and the gap is the whole decision. Published guidance puts typical offers somewhere in the region of 80% to 90% of what a home might have achieved if it had been marketed normally.

The mechanism matters as much as the number. Developers usually instruct at least two independent estate agents to value your home, and ask them for a realistic selling price achievable within a few weeks rather than an asking price. That is a different question from the one an agent answers when you invite them to value your home for sale, and it produces a lower figure before any discount is applied.

The figures above are an illustration using published averages, not a quote. The point is the shape of the trade rather than the exact pounds: you are buying certainty and speed, and roughly £40,000 on this example is what it costs.

Is my home even eligible?

Schemes are selective, because the developer has to be confident it can resell your home quickly. Common conditions include:

• Your new home must usually be worth meaningfully more than your current one, often by at least 30%.
• The property must sit within an area the developer covers.
• Many schemes exclude ex-local-authority homes, flats, or properties of non-standard construction.
• Homes with short leases, structural issues or unresolved building regulations are frequently refused.
• Your home must be in a condition the developer believes will sell without work.

What are the real advantages?

They are not small, and in the current market they are worth more than they were two years ago.

• No chain, so nobody above or below you can collapse your move.
• No estate agent fee on the sale of your existing home.
• No viewings, no keeping the house immaculate for strangers, no open-ended wait.
• A known completion date you can plan around.
• You stay in your home until the new one is ready.

Set against a market where Zoopla found three in five homes listed since January 2026 had still not found a buyer, certainty has genuine value. The question is not whether it is worth something. It is whether it is worth what is being asked.

What should I watch out for?

Certainty is worth paying for. It is only a good deal if you know what you are paying.

How do I decide?

Work out the two net figures and compare them honestly. Take the part-exchange offer as it stands, then take your realistic open-market price less your agent fee and any costs of a longer wait, and put them side by side.

Then decide what the difference buys you. If it removes a chain that has already collapsed once, or lets you move on a fixed date for a job or a family reason, it may be money well spent. If it is simply the path of least resistance on a Saturday afternoon at a show home, that is an expensive way to save a few weeks.

What is the sensible order to do this in?

Find out what your home is worth on the open market first, then look at the part-exchange offer second. Doing it the other way round means the first number you ever hear about your own home is one produced for somebody who is buying it.

ValuQ gives UK homeowners free, side-by-side property valuations from competing local estate agents, which is a way of establishing that figure before you sit down with anybody. Whatever you decide afterwards, you will be deciding with the number in your hand.