There is a familiar piece of advice that says you'll get the highest total price by selling each property individually, on the open market, over time. On paper, sometimes that is true. In practice, for an owner in their late sixties or seventies, it rarely is.
What piecemeal really costs
Each individual sale carries its own legal fees, agent fees, mortgage redemption admin, and capital gains event. Each one risks a chain collapse. Each one means another tenancy disrupted, another set of viewings, another year added to the process.
By the time the last property completes, often three or four years later, the cumulative cost in fees, voids, interest, and time can easily erase the headline premium.
What a whole-portfolio sale trades, and what it gives back
A single buyer will typically pay slightly below the very top of a perfect open-market campaign. In return, you receive certainty of completion, a single date in the diary, a single set of fees, and a single tax event your accountant can plan around precisely.
For most owners we meet, the certainty is worth far more than the last few percent, particularly when measured against the alternative of spending the next four years managing a slow wind-down.
The right question to ask
The question is rarely "which route gives the highest theoretical number?" It is "which route gives me the cleanest exit, with the least disruption to the people involved, in the shortest realistic timeframe?" Framed that way, the answer is usually clear.