Property Finders - are they worth it?

[Bambi75]

Hello. We are house hunting in london w4 for a family home and are thinking about hiring a professional search agent to do the legwork & negotiation side of things for us. She will view houses based on our criteria, shortlist hot properties & do all the negotiating for us. We're finding the market in Chiswick extremely competitive with many of the good houses going for above asking price and many to horror sealed bids situations (one house had 12 sealed bids on it!). I'm a SAHM with 2 kids under 3 so not much time on my hands so im thinking someone to Take the hassle away would be great. Has anyone used a property finder?? If so, would you recommend it?? Any potential pitfalls I should look out ?? Thanks

I'm not sure how a property finder would stop a house going to sealed bids or for above asking price unless the finder were tipped off about something about to come on the market and you were to offer above the norm before it went public, iyswim. Sellers in boom areas usually have a pretty good idea what is happening locally and are keen to get the highest price they can so what would make an offer from a search agent more attractive to them?

I can understand why very busy people (lots of travel, working very long hours) might be tempted to use a search agent or someone with a public profile who really values privacy might, but I genuinely don't understand the advantage for normal bods and it adds an awful lot to the costs of moving (in W4, I imagine you're in at least 4% stamp duty territory).

Yes I see what you mean about finder not being able to stop a sealed bid scenario. I guess we'd be paying partly for her expertise in marketing us to the sellers to get a result in a sealed bid situation where the seller has several similar offers and has to choose. The Finder cited an rxamMy husband thinks its worth paying

Oops.... Try again...

... The finder cited a recent example where she managed to get a sealed bid accepted which was lower than other offers but where the way she marketed the buyers in question saved the day.

I'm in 2 minds. My husband thinks it's a service worth paying for as it will be our forever family home and if it secures us our dream house the cost will be a drop in the ocean in the longterm.

But are you the sort of people whose offer will make you attractive buyers? (This isn't meant to be disparaging in any way, it's just her recent example may have involved a cash buyer or someone with nothing to sell at the very least and those things may not apply to you. In which case, any estate agent worth his commission would advise a buyer to take the slightly lower offer rather than faff around waiting for banks to get their act together.)

I don't know how long or how hard you've been looking or how realistic your wish list is but I would think you are in an ideal position to make friends with estate agents locally provided you live within shouting distance of Chiswick High St. Take your children out every day in their double buggy and go into each office - the children will help them to remember you - and smile nicely and use some chat and go and see some places (that probably won't be right) and explain again what you're looking for and you appreciate their showing you these properties but what you really want is... I'd try good, old-fashioned persistence first.

Yes we're cash buyers with nothing to sell which is probably a strong enough position in itself without the need for extra finder help. The fact is though is that we'll be up against a not insignificant number of other cash buyers in that part of london too, being the kind of area it is with good proximity to good schools etc. we live in nw london so not local either. Oh well, decisions decisions. Thanks for the advice, will definitely take it on board as i mull it over

We recently sold our house (not in London, but commutable with mental house prices currently) so might have some insight from the other side!

We had four cash buyers offering well over the asking price. The third highest bidder was an investor buyer who was using a relocation agent.

We "picked" the second highest offer. He'd bought another house in the area recently, through the same agent, and had apparently been very easy to deal with.

On the other side, the house we're currently never went on the market. We were very serious about a similar house down the road and so therefore were in the agents' minds when they wanted someone for a quick sale.

I guess what I am saying is - get to know the agents. Try to be really positive about properties. One of the things that put us off our highest bidder was niggling about small things during viewings.

It's great that you don't need to sell. Do you need to get a mortgage or are you sitting on cash for the full purchase price?

If you need a mortgage it would be best to get the mortgage offer approved now to improve your position (and hope you find something you like before the offer expires). Having just gone through the buying process the mortgage offer took much longer to come through than we expected.

I would second getting to know the estate agents. Go to see a lot of properties, even if you know that those properties aren't quite right for you. It will help you understand the local market better and the estate agents will take you seriously.

i have a friend using a property finder but they are searching for something very specific across an entire county - in London I don't see the point.
I don't think they will give you any advantage when it comes to sealed bids as others have said - today I sold my house with sealed bids. I sat down with the agent after lunch and went through each person and it's a totally logical process - who has offered what, how much cash do they have, what is their position etc etc. If you are already a cash buyer you are already in a good position.
Where I think it's possibly not ideal is that you are not in the area you want to live in - I spent months trudging around with the pushchair so I know my area inside out and can pounce on things as soon as they come on the market. And I have got to know streets that maybe isn't in the most desirable grid but it's very close and perhaps overlooked by other buyers.
I don't think that a property finder will give you an advantage once it comes to negotiation with the agent though.

Thanks everyone for the feedback - it's great to hear about real experiences too, from both sides. I can totally see why the finder might not help much with the negotiation end. Even still, I think I'm going to go ahead. We've met a lot of the agents in the area and did a bit of a charm offensive with our 2 girls in tow last weekend. I'm less concerned about that and more concerned about physically having the time to get to properties quickly to view them and also having the time to identify the roads we'd like to live in. The finder knows the chiswick area like the back of her hand and has lots of local contacts so even if she is able to point us in the direction of areas that we hadn't considered or, through her contacts, finds out about a house before it comes to market that needs to be sold quickly and we can go in and make a very attractive offer, then this will in my view be worth the money. Yes we have nothing to sell but we'll be getting a 40% mortgage. The prices of the houses are totally extortionate (we're talking £1.5m plus for 4 bed) which will be a huge commitment, so I think any help in getting us the house that's totally right for us is going to be worth it. Thanks again for feedback - you've certainly given me lots to think about.