Your questions, answered

No. My buyers have bought from under £475,000 to over £1.3 million. A smaller budget is a different search, not a lesser one – different areas, different property types, different things to check first. The service is the same. You get the same attention either way.

Yes, absolutely. The first conversation is about what you have already done – where you have looked, what you offered on, what went wrong and when. That history is extremely useful, and it shapes how we run the search going forward.

Yes, and they are a large part of my buyer base. I advise first-time buyers on the whole process, from the first search to completion: the jargon and the issues you have not met before, how offers actually work, and what is said to the selling agent and by whom. No question is too small or too basic.

Yes. Many of my buyers are not in London when the search starts, and some are not in the country. Viewing days are built around trips you are already making, blocked together so you see several in one day. I view first on my own and send you what I find, then we see the shortlisted ones together when you are here.

Yes, it is a regular part of my work. The one thing to settle at the start is who makes the final decision – you, or the person who will live there. You are funding it, so you have a say either way. All communication includes everyone with a say, just so everyone is on the same page.

North, East and South East London, covering Haringey, Islington, Hackney, Waltham Forest, Tower Hamlets, Newham, Southwark, Lewisham, Greenwich and Bromley boroughs. See my services for more.

I guarantee the search, not the purchase. Properties that fit your brief will be found and put in front of you. Whether you buy one is your decision, and it should be. If nothing is landing, we go back to the brief and work out what needs to change.

Selection starts with your brief. What you thought you wanted can shift once you have seen a few properties, which is absolutely fine. I look at what is listed, what is coming and what is off market, and brief local agents to call me when something fits. I see a lot. You see the ones that answer your brief.

There is a genuinely private market, but it is mostly high-value sellers who want anonymity, and that is not where my buyers are looking. What exists in this market is the window before a property is listed. That is where knowing the local agents matters – they ring me because they know my buyers are genuine, serious and will turn up.

Three things at once – fact, feel and fit. Fact is the building itself: damp, movement, electrics, planning history. Feel is how the space reads: the light, the flow, how practical it is to live in. Fit is whether it suits your brief, your life and the next buyer. You get my honest view on each, including what does not work.

On evidence, not emotion. Before you offer I put together what the comparable sales say, the price per square foot against them, what any work you want to do will cost, and how the seller’s position reads. It is easy to fall for a place and offer more than it is worth. The decision is yours, but my advice will always come from the evidence.

Most buyers view between ten and twenty before they decide. One viewed seventy-three. One offered on the first. There is no cap – I will not stop at a set number. But seeing too many does not help either. Past a point they blur together and the decision gets harder, not clearer.

Four to six months from starting to keys is typical. Most buyers secure a property within eight to ten weeks – conveyancing is the unpredictable part. A leasehold flat takes longer, because the management pack has to come from the managing agent. A freehold house is quicker. A chain, or a seller still looking for their own place, adds time nobody controls.

Yes, when you cannot make it – with video, photographs and a straight opinion afterwards. But I would rather you came, even to a first viewing. Deal breakers show up faster when you are standing in the room, and what you react to tells me more about your brief than anything you wrote down.

We sit down and look at it together, early rather than after months of nothing. Usually what you imagined you could have and what the market offers have moved apart, so we sharpen the brief around what you will compromise on. London has a property for you. Finding it is my job, and that is what will happen.

Yes, although I will not sell your property. For that you will instruct a selling agent. Before we start, your own place needs to be on the market or under offer – an offer from a buyer who is not proceedable will not be accepted, so viewing earlier is wasted time. I then liaise with your selling agent through the conveyancing and chase the chain.

Like any service, it depends on how much of the process you are happy to take on yourself. If you have the time, enjoy the viewings, are happy dealing with several agents, know what you want, are confident you will know the right home when you see it, know what questions to ask and what to look for, are a strong negotiator and can manage the purchase through to completion, then there is no point paying someone else to do that.

.If you would rather hand any of that over, that is where a buying agent is worth it: advice at every step, every home seen with an architect’s eye, and negotiation on your behalf. If you are not sure what a reasonable offer is, it is easy to pay more than you need to. What I save you on the price, and on the stamp duty that comes with it, often covers more than my fee.

.As for the cost: a £2,000 retainer is paid on appointment and covers twelve weeks of my time on the search. Everything after that is a success fee: on completion you pay 2% of the purchase price or £10,000, whichever is greater, less the retainer. In the unlikely event the search runs into a second period, there is a further retainer, and that one is not deducted.

The search restarts. Once you are under offer I pause the search clock, so if the purchase falls through we pick up where we stopped with the search time you have left. A further retainer only applies if that twelve weeks of search time has already been used.

A percentage is the industry standard, for buying agents and selling agents alike. My interest is in getting the price down, not up. Saving you £20,000 is effectively worth more than £20,000, because you save the stamp duty on it too. I lose £400 of fee. That is worth less to me than your satisfaction and the recommendation that follows.

I take no commission from anyone – not solicitors, not surveyors, not brokers. The people I introduce are ones I have worked with for years, chosen because they are good and because they know how I work. If you have your own, I am happy to work with them and will keep things moving so the purchase does not slow down.

Four at a time, at most. That is what makes the rest of it possible – viewing on your behalf, being at the second viewing, reading the survey, chasing the chain. It is a deliberate limit, not a stage I am waiting to grow out of.

I will not take on two buyers looking for the same thing in the same area at the same budget. It is the first thing I check before taking someone on, and the four-buyer limit makes it straightforward.