Property buying agents: Would you spend £15K just to find a home?

By Christopher Middleton Published: 4:00PM GMT twenty-six February 2010

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Sold! Buying agents are not usually for the abounding and important such as Kylie Minogue, left. The Laidler family, right, used one to find their home in Sussex Photo: REX FEATURES; PHILIP HOLLIS

Once on a time, the usually people who used shopping agents were celebrities seeking for �5m-plus houses. Big names and big spenders embody Eric Clapton, Kylie Minogue, and Pink Floyds Nick Mason.

Now, though, even we small people are profitable as majority as �3,000 upfront for someone to spot out and secure us the residence of the dreams. At that point we have to cough up an additional 2.5 per cent of the concluded squeeze cost (�50,000 on a �2m house).

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And with houses now so scarce, a small people are utilizing shopping agents to buy properties costing as small as �500,000. This equates to the representative walks afar with a coupon for �15,000.

Is it value it? Definitely, says mom of dual teenagers Melanie Laidler, who used a shopping group to find the family residence in Sussex she was seeking for.

"My father and I knew just what we wanted, but the estate agents seemed to take one see at us and confirm we couldnt means it," she says.

"After removing nowhere, we went to BDI Homefinders, who helped us buy a place marry discharged prior to since the photos on the details had been rather poor, and there werent sufficient bedrooms. Our representative Sam forked out how easy it would be to supplement a bedroom, afterwards negotiated us sufficient of a bonus [�1.15m instead of �1.2m] to compensate her fees and more."

A standard story, says seasoned shopping representative Saul Empson, of Haringtons. "Most people who come to us have been seeking for at slightest dual or 3 months," he says. "Theyre sleepy of conference about alternative people shopping places that theyve never even got to see."

Indeed, the golden sheet that shopping agents can suggest is the one that allows clients in to perspective a residence prior to it has appeared in the estate agents window.

"In Oct to Dec last year, some-more than 70 per cent of houses we acquired for clients never went entirely onto the market," says Jonathan Hopper, handling executive of Garrington Homefinders. Other agents inform identical levels of off-piste selling.

"We know whos out there, whos finished a bid, who hasnt finished a bid," says Peter Mackie of Property Vision, one of the greatest agencies. "Were all all embedded in the business."

Others verbalise of internal knowledge, traffic contacts, networks of past clients and even dinner-party and front-doorstep gossip.

"I had one of my majority appropriate tipoffs from the man who delivers my logs," says Tom Hudson, of dilettante farming shopping agents Middleton Advisors.

And once you have been whisked by the front doorway with a metaphorical sweeping over your head, the shopping agents are penetrating to bind you a deal. Though not, it should be said, at any price.

"We know the story of a house, what it has sole for in the past, what allied houses have sole for not long ago and either it has been on the market, and been taken off again," Empson says.

"In London, we have entrance to a traffic database called Lonres," says Jo Eccles, of Sourcing Property. "We can entrance any propertys history, from how majority it has been sole for to what work it has had finished on it."

As well as researching the house, the shopping agents examine the area, to find out if a housing estate is probable to open up on the behind doorstep.

"The classical inapplicable designation is for thoughtless buyers to go and revisit houses in a sure piece of Oxfordshire at the weekend," Empson says.

"The planes from RAF Brize Norton dont fly on a Saturday or Sunday, but the a opposite story in the week."

Naturally, all shopping agencies explain they can save you from creation that kind of mistake. So how do you select in between the firms?

The majority conspicuous disproportion is the actuality that 3 of them are the shopping arms of big estate agencies: Private Property Search (Strutt & Parker), The Buying Solution (Knight Frank) and Prime Purchase (Savills). Does this not paint a dispute of interest?

"Not at all," says Philip Selway, of The Buying Solution. "We dont have a absolved position, in conditions of Knight Frank revelation us about a skill but not the rivals."

"We action for the buyers, and Strutt & Parker action for the sellers," says Ian Hepburn, of Private Property Search. "Theres a really transparent division."

Even so, Camilla Dell, of shopping group Black Brick, thinks autonomy is essential. "Its the singular offered point," she says. "No one can credit us of widely separated loyalties."

Maybe not, but what people can contend is that shopping agencies are expensive.

With the peculiar exception, perhaps, such as London Property Match, run by grandmothers Sarah Snow and Suzanne Emson. They assign usually a �587.50 signing-on deposit, and one per cent of the squeeze price.

"Theyre these maternal sum who verbalise sum commonsense and cut by all the balderdash from the estate agents," says Chelsea art play James Harvey.

"They hold the hands the total approach when we paid for the residence in Battersea."

So maybe it is time for the ladies to put their prices up?

"Yes, a organisation did try to take us over and have us assign dual per cent, but we pronounced no," says Snow, smiling.

"I think one per cent is utterly enough, dont you?"

Not so tip agents

Do

Ensure they have internal knowledgeFind an representative with whom you have a rapportAsk to verbalise to alternative confident clients

Dont

Be tender by intelligent officesDawdle (the use stops after 3 to 6 months)Forget you have to compensate on purchase

Buying representative basics

BDI Homefinders 0845 603 6110, bdihomefinders.co.uk Black Brick 020 3393 6091, black-brick.com The Buying Solution 01488 657912, www.thebuyingsolution.co.uk Garrington 020 7099 2773, garrington.co.uk Haringtons 020 7661 9388, haringtons-uk.com London Property Match 020 7881 5235, londonpropertymatch.com