Search Agent (Property)

We found ourselves in a similar situation around 10 years ago when we bought a place in Camden and used a couple of brothers who act as search agents – https://www.edingtons.co.uk

They sold it to us on the basis that they would get additional access to properties off-market and would find out about ones coming on before they went live on Rightmove etc. I wouldn’t say that they really fulfilled this promise.

As it happened, we ended up finding the property we bought ourselves, but due to the terms of the contract we signed with them, we ended up having to pay their fees in any case – so if you do use one be aware that this will likely be the case unless you agree otherwise. Where they did offer some value, is in giving us a good understanding of what they felt would be the lowest offer which was likely to be accepted by the vendors, which saved us some money. If you do your own research and are a confident negotiator this can be done yourselves, but in a market with limited properties, this was a benefit to us that we would otherwise have struggled with, given that at that time we had little knowledge of the local area and the market dynamics.