Although the storm clouds appear to be gathering, it may be just the right time to take advantage and sell.

First of all, you may want to leave the city for a place in the country.

In this scenario, you have a family home, which you have owned for five years or more.

You have built up equity in your property, and single family homes can sell very well.

With property prices in London still high, you could have a comparative advantage over those in the area you’d like to move to in the country.

However, watch this carefully. As reported last month in the Sunday Times, the current supply of top-priced country properties is shrinking. It’s best not to waste too much time chasing potential shades or expensive properties.

Second, you may be looking to change to change

You want an extra room, maybe moving from a two-bedroom duplex to a three-bedroom townhouse or townhouse. Once again, success is about profiting from comparatively low property prices. How this works is, you take your property at say £300,000 on the market and its price drops 10%, you can expect £30,000 less, if you sell it. Now that you’ve got your eye on a property priced at £450,000, there’s a chance you could negotiate a 10% reduction in price similar to what your property suffered. If you are successful, you can win £45,000. The argument goes, run a temporary shortfall on your sale to earn more compensation on the new property.

Third, they are an elderly couple and want to change

Here, you are seeing the equity in your property go down, or likely to go down. You may want to be patient and wait for prices to start rising again. Alternatively, this may be the time to downsize, freeing up capital for use now. Your financial priorities may lie in helping your children realize the dream of owning their own property. Or maybe you just want more of the things you promised yourself, more vacations or that caravan in your favorite part of the world.

Finally, do your research, plan carefully, you can make a difference in these seemingly bleak times.