All the help you need to prepare, search, evaluate, bid, secure and get moved into your next home.
We are buying agents. We search for homes and seek to acquire them on behalf of our clients. As far as the law is concerned, we are estate agents – we just happen to act for buyers, not sellers. We buy properties between £500,000 and £50m. Some clients just want help looking for a new home, some want help to evaluate a property and to negotiate the best deal. Spending a six figure sum is something most people do on average every ten years.
We act for 30 – 40 clients a year. Despite rocketing prices & endless ‘best & final offers’ our clients typically paid 5% less than the quoted asking price for the homes they bought although some pay more – for a variety of reasons. Our biggest saving last year was 11% of the asking price.
According to Rightmove sellers typically accepted around 5% (£11,000) less than their final asking price. Zoopla says that it’s just 3.86% and figures published by Hometrack suggest that an average buyer pays 97% of the asking price.
Over the past decade, on average our clients paid 11% (or £100,000) less!
One third of what we buy is ‘off-market’, not on websites or in estate agents’ windows.
We are not the only buying agents and it’s more important that you have the right advisor than that it necessarily be us. For a brief period of time your buying agent will have a detailed and personal knowledge of your affairs so you must trust them and have confidence in what they are doing and they in you. We are confident that we are at least as good as most firms but are not arrogant enough to think that we can be everyone’s cup of tea. Our aim is that you have the right advisor for you even if that means you are represented by someone else. These are some of the best that we recommend you speak to.
A buying agent can;-
- Source off-market properties – those available but not advertised on websites or in agent’s windows.
- Advise on areas, compare and contrast different places.
- Research a street, village or town looking at crime, natural threats such as flooding and over-flights by planes.
- Assess relative value.
- Research the motivations of the sellers and look for pressure points like death, debt or divorce.
- Comment on yield and the potential for capital growth.
- Negotiate with the seller and their agent. (Not all selling agents are slippery but some certainly are!).
- Introduce the best mortgage brokers, accountants and wealth managers along with advisors, tradesmen & lawyers.
- Liaise with solicitors, valuers, surveyors, architects, builders and contractors.
- Help to make your next move the smoothest and most painless experience possible.
Sometimes the best advice we give is “don’t!”. Having seen hundreds of homes over the years we can often spot a problem that would be easy to overlook.
Buying agents are still estate agents in the eyes of the law and as such each must sign up to a redress scheme. Confusingly there are two, we were members of The Property Ombudsman for many years but this is the one that we are currently signed up to.
It’s important to stress that we are good but we’re not magicians. We can help shorten the process, help to ensure that you don’t buy the wrong thing and buy as aggressively as possible but we can’t dream up a property if one doesn’t exist. We can help to decide what might be worth compromising on and what isn’t.
On the advice of a family member, I called Henry in March 2022 asking for help to purchase a property in London. From that first day Henry has been diligent (spotting things that my husband and I had missed) and determined (pushing forward necessary legal procedures). Whenever we had questions, be it by phone or by e-mail, he was there. Whenever we needed help, on the survey or on insurance, he was able to offer suggestions. Henry will become the most reliable member of your team.
Henry’s knowledge, experience and confidence throughout the transaction that we were involved in was second to none. Therefore making the entirety of the progressing sale run incredibly smoothly and efficiently, I am without a doubt that without Henry’s assistance and proactiveness, the transaction would have been troublesome and problematic.
I hope to be able to have the pleasure of working together with Henry again in the near future.
Working with Henry has been a real pleasure. Not only did he introduce the perfect buyer for my clients home, he was in constant communication with me and ensured the deal went through on behalf of his client extremely quickly.
I look forward to doing more business with Henry
A real professional and gentleman !
Buying a house can be stressful and involve a lot of uncertainty so it’s been fantastic to have professionals like Henry and Rosie working on our behalf, guiding us through the search, purchase and legal process.
Rosie listened attentively to all our requirements and feedback, she was very proactive and always in communication with us. Rosie also handled the estate agents and solicitors with diligence and care to the extent that we almost had nothing to do!
Henry has extensive knowledge of the London property market and is clearly respected by the real estate agents he dealt with. He is very personable and friendly.
Considering all the work that went on behind the scenes, their service was certainly worth the money. Without a doubt we would totally recommend them to anyone searching for a new home.
Without Henry’s experience and wise advice I would have wasted a lot of time and money going down expensive and wasteful rabbit holes such as looking at wrong locations and considering inappropriate houses. Hiring Henry is as much about the things that you won’t have to do as it is about things that he does for you. Obviously his fee is worth every penny. Rosie Pryor is as conscientious and attentive as Henry. The solicitor he recommended was first rate, and I say this as a lawyer. The whole team was professional and efficient. This is what you need to make a competitive bid on the property that ultimately catches your eye.
Henry and Rosie delivered nothing short of an exceptional service for my property search over the last year. They were invaluable in unearthing new properties, keeping in contact with the local agents and giving much needed guidance and advice on valuations and highlighting issues with properties. Crucially – they were not shy at giving their unbiased opinions and I am very glad to have listened! They were also a pleasure to deal with personally – great communication, super responsive and all approached with good humour.
They also made the actual process of purchasing extremely smooth, despite a tricky process, that ultimately resulted in securing a fantastic house. Henry and Rosie took much of the stress out of buying a house and getting a good result to boot.
I cannot recommend Henry and Rosie highly enough – I will most certainly be using them again in the future.
Henry and Rosie worked on our behalf to secure a property last year. The transaction was a complicated one and Henry was there to guide us all the way through; from negotiating on our behalfs, providing salient advice, and during stressful times, be a sounding board for us (unluckily for him!) There is absolutely no doubt that if it were not for Henry’s efforts, we would never have got the transaction over the line, and for all of his and Rosie’s efforts, we are forever grateful.
From one team of consummate professionals to another, Rosie and Henry Pryor were without even a modicum of doubt, an exemplary duo of buying agents – we have worked with many but I would be far pushed to say I have personally come across a service that warrants the words… “preeminent amongst others”; and theirs most certainly was. We look forward to working with them again and highly recommend them to any buyers in the market for their dream home.
Henry and Rosie worked tirelessly in a very challenging market to meet the needs of our specific brief. Rather than one big act, their comprehensive service was a series of dozens of vitally important pieces that kept us moving forward.
Everything from the relentless house hunting, the invaluable advice on individual houses vs our circumstances, the seal of credibility stamped on our offers, the coordination with the dizzying array of stakeholders and service providers and – most of all – the good humoured straight talking when we frequently lost hope or sanity.
The Pryors have infinite knowledge of the housing market and we wouldn’t consider buying a house again without them.
I can say with confidence that without Henry and Kate and the amazing support they provided us we would still be searching for a property. Instead we are planning our lives in our new home and are counting our lucky stars we had Henry in our corner. There have been several bumps in the road to get us here and Henry and Kate are the ones who have kept things moving, with humour and skill. We will never ever attempt to buy a house again without calling Henry and Kate first!