Estate agents are having to handle fewer chains, it has been claimed.

According to Countrywide, the proportion of sales where the vendor is not in a chain is now 67%.

That is down from 90% ten years ago.

Countrywide says that the change is mainly due to a new sub-market of buy-to-let investors selling to each other.

Countrywide’s research says that in the Lancashire town of Hyndburn, the seller is chain-free in 76% of transactions, while in Liverpool the figure stands at 62%; in Nottingham it is 50%.

Chains are most common in London, where just 26% of transactions have no onward chain.

We would be interested in your views. Are you finding chains less common?