People often forget that buying agents are estate agents (as defined by the 1979 Estate Agents Act) and although they act of the purchaser, like their more numerous siblings who act for sellers a buying agent is paid for a completed transaction. Most estate agency offices concentrate on selling and/or letting but they have a database of eager buyers and tenants and some selling agents are working their applicant list by have a buying agency business either in-house or attached to their selling and letting operations. Many firms of selling agents will do the odd bit of buying if and when the mood takes them, Savills has their own dedicated buying business called Prime Purchase, Knight Frank The Buying Solution.
I work with a dozen selling agents who don’t offer a full buying service paying a handsome 20% introductory fee for business that they refer and I am expanding this by working with individual offices to ‘mentor’ a member of staff and help develop a buying department.
If you’re a selling agent and interested in earning additional revenue then why not follow the example of other firms who send the following kind of email to applicants who register with them;-
Whilst we win the lion’s share of the properties in the £1.5 – £3m bracket in our part of the world, there are always going to be other properties which are available through other agents or privately available and which we can’t get you in to. At present, any really good houses which are priced sensibly are sold either before they hit the market or very soon after – it is therefore vital that you have your finger on the pulse of the market to ensure that you are the first through the door. Whilst not a necessity, many people looking to buy in the area you have highlighted at around £2-£5m use search/buying agents, as they are constantly talking to and meeting agents and their job is to ensure that you know about houses before everyone else does and, once the right one is found, they ensure that you secure it.
There are a number of agents operating in your ideal patch, some better than others. I have just put a prospective buyer in touch with two agents, both of whom took him out of a tour of the area for half a day over the weekend, to show him what they could offer / what they knew and to show what value they could add. They don’t charge anything to do this, but it may be a worthwhile exercise for you at some point to see what’s out there.
Do let me know if you want some names for the best agents in your highlighted area / price bracket.
Estate agents earn a fee for selling over 95% of homes in this country but less than 5% from those who buy. In a business of agents not brokers there are many buyers who might be grateful for some expertise and some even who are prepared to pay for it!