We get asked this a lot. In fact, second to ‘when will prices stop going up?’ it’s the most common question we get from people considering our services. The answer is always the same but it’s worth repeating here in case there are any lurking potential clients reading this!
‘Access’ is the answer in a nutshell. Estate Agents, like most sales people, will go for the low hanging fruit if they possibly can. If they can deal with serious and qualified buyers without the need to wade through endless viewings to do so, they will. They are mostly human after all.
Buyers that we represent are serious, they have to be. We ask for a modest engagement fee before we offer them any properties. It can vary from £1000 to £10,000 depending on the budget and it is of course accounted for in the success fee we charge once the perfect property is secured.
When we call an agent to book in a viewing, whether it’s for us to preview the property on behalf of a client or a viewing with our client if the property makes the shortlist, we often get priority over ‘normal’ unrepresented buyers. That may not be fair, but it’s the nature of the business. However, most of the time, it’s the agent that actually calls us.
Typically when a property is valued ahead of being offered to the market, there is a window of time when the details are perhaps being drawn up or the floor plan is being finalised. During this time, the agent will call a handful of people that he or she thinks may be able to buy the property without the need for expensive brochures and advertising. It makes sense to try and sell your client’s property as quickly and efficiently as possible, so this is a perfectly legitimate and sensible thing to do. We are one of the people that they will call during this period, and that is a reason to use us.
Another feature that puts us at the head of the queue, and above even other property search agents, is that we are local. We don’t commute to Kensington and Chelsea, we live, work and bring up our families here.
We have bought and sold the same type of properties that you are looking for, from flats to family houses and everything in-between. We can see a newly valued property with 15 minutes notice, others can’t and that can make all the difference. Again, agents don’t want to have to make a single call more than they need to secure a sale, sadly, its human nature, but it can work to your advantage in the property market.
We secure many properties for clients in this way and we often use the fact the agent has not incurred any costs to advertise the property to the wider market to your advantage.
Of course I could go on further to list all the other reasons why our clients come back to us time and time again to help them find the perfect property but I will save that for another time.
If you would like to find out more, please do not hesitate to get in touch.
