Let your agents do the legwork

When it comes to buying houses it can take weeks of traipsing around dozens of unsuit­able properties to find the one you like. If you want to stay one step ahead of the game, however, there are people who will do the work for you.

Buying agents are companies that will track down a property according to your specific brief. And as the market continues to grow they are in increasing demand.

“There has been a big increase in interest in paying for buying agents’ services over the past couple of years,” says Cliff Gardiner, head of London buying at Buying Solution, the buying agent arm of estate agents Knight Frank. “As people come under more time pressure they start to look for other people to do the work for them.”

He says the number of million-pound properties coming on to the market has stagnated but that the number of potential buyers competing for these houses has risen.

“Our business has doubled in the first quarter of this year compared with the same period last year,” Gardiner says. “This is because people’s bonuses have gone up and they are eager to use this money to get on
to the property ladder. They want to use
us because we can get people in to see
properties that are not on the market yet and help the buyer beat the scramble for houses.”

He says that 50 per cent of the properties they find for people in London are off-market, as are 70 per cent of the country properties he finds. “Availability of the million-pound-plus property is historically low in London at the moment,” he says. “It is my job to hear about the property before it comes to the open market and make sure we are first through the door.”

There are a number of buying agents in the UK and most tend to follow a similar pattern. They will interview clients wishing to move house, then shortlist homes on sale that meet their needs and arrange visits. When a client decides to buy one, the agent negotiates a sale price and even arranges removal men.

The point of a buying agent is that they will find a place for you by being ahead of the game. Because a good buying agent will have in-depth local knowledge, they should be well placed to know what is happening in terms of who may be thinking of selling.

“Local knowledge is part of what you are paying for,” says Nathalie Hirst of Prime Purchase, a subsidiary of Savills, “And also for the expertise of that agent. He or she will be able to tell if a property is a good buy or not and, of course, whether it has been overpriced.”

Hirst also points out that people pay
for the relationship the buyer has with estate agents. “Most buying agents are dealing
with large amounts of money, so estate agents know the buyers are serious,” she says. “We managed to secure a property
in Belgravia for a buyer at a £100,000
discount to the value because the seller knew we were a acting on behalf of a very serious buyer.”

Buying agents fall into different cate­gories. Some are independent companies, others, such as Prime Purchase and Buying Solutions, are owned by large estate agents. The third group consists of individuals who usually work through personal recommend­ation and tend to charge lower fees. It is also possible to get help from private client services companies, such as Coutts, who offer a house-finding service for its clients.

But there is a catch for all these services. It is all done for a fee, usually a “registration fee” of £500-£2,000. On top of this there will be a fee of between 1 and 2 per cent of the purchase price, in addition to the 2.5 per cent buyers may pay estate agents to sell their old property.