buyers/property search agent

[Gloriamumble]

we're trying to find our forever house in an area about 1.5 hours drive from where we currently live. We've looked at everything on the Rightmove and primelocation that fits our criteria (offerred on 2 places but lost them both to other cash buyers). It's getting a bit desparate now as dh is on a relocation package and if our house sells before we find somewhere, we'll end up having to move into rented in new area (so moving twice when I'm in final year of my degree).

I've been thinking of using a property search agent to try and find properties, not only to get access to stuff that might only being quietly marketed but also someone to do first viewings and save us the time of looking at stuff that isn't suitable.

Has anyone ever used a property search agent? What do you think?

I've never used one but know people who have - with mixed results. It is quite expensive - generally you pay several hundred/a couple of thousand pounds up front and 1.5% of house price if they find you what you want but I can see in your circs it would be worth doing as would cut down on a lot of travel. I also think that one involved in the local market will be able to let you know what a sensible offer should be (so hard to tell at the moment). There are so many TV programmes that do this - Location/Escape to the Country/To Buy or Not to Buy etc - that unless your criteria are very specific, I might be tempted to sign up for one of those.

tried to sign up to property search progs, got accepted and then they dropped bombshell that during filming process we would have to stay in b and b in target area for a week and we don't have anyone who could look after dd for that length of time. We weren't allowed to commute to filming, dd wasn't allowed to stay with us (even if we got dh's mum to look after her during the actual filming).

The friends who had a bad experience (you said "mixed" so I assume some bad, some good) what was the problem, was it just that they didn't find a property?

They didn't find suitable properties, didn't seem any better than just trawling the estate agencies themselves - nothing horrific, just disappointing. Two other people who used search agents - and this was several years ago - did really well and got properties before they came on the market. You need someone with really fantastic local knowledge and contacts - the trouble is that many of them have got terribly grand and only operate on behalf of Russian plutocrats looking to buy a castle.

so where are you looking gloria?

why do you ask? Might you be able to recommend a good property search agent? Feel free to CAT me if so - I'm a bit concerned about putting too many details and "outing" myself...

Which area you are talking about?

ah sorry didnt think. I dont know any search agents but dont under estimate the power of MN - there's likely an MNer from the area you want to move to who can help.

perhaps it would be cheaper to get to know (bugging>>) the estate agents better, a bit more leg work esp given that you are some way from it. our house ended up being sold to someone from spain who had done the leg work with the estate agent who called them before it went on the market, they came over and put an offer in on the same day. that said you m ight have already been doing this so sorry if the advice is redundant! good luck1

TBH I think i've decided that we will go for the search agents.

I've tried pallying up with the local estate agents but they just send me everything they've got on the books in the price range - ignoring completely the area we want or the fact that we want to be near to local shops. They then bombard me with calls asking why we won't be doing a viewing and/or why we don't want to put an offer in if we have done a viewing and don't listen to me saying what is wrong, they just try to convince me that the house is lovely - which it often is just not in the right place or not the right number of bedrooms/reception rooms.

I'm sick of trying to justify myself to them without pissing them off when I've already explained what we're looking for and THEY HAVEN'T LISTENED.

I'm winding myself up now even thinking about it so I think the best thing to do is to hand over dealing with estate agents to someone else and concentrate on DD/DH/christmas/degree/keeping current place tidy for viewings/getting a cleaner...... etc, etc