In our role as London buying agents we bring our clients the finest properties their budget allows, many of which are off market or accessed prior to marketing, and then negotiate the best possible terms. But this is far from the extent of what we can do for our clients throughout the complicated and expensive UK buying process. Over many years in the industry we have discovered those who provide the highest level of professionalism in their field. We often refer our clients to trusted solicitors, surveyors, architects, interior designers, amongst other. The importance of these roles can be immense.

A good solicitor is essential to protect you from any legal issues on a property and to can overcome potential issues or can help to increase value in many different ways. In a competitive market a fast moving solicitor who communicates well is vital. In central London leasehold enfranchisement is often necessary and again the solicitor is crucial but also the surveyor who will negotiate for you. The value an architect can add to a property by obtaining the optimum planning permission can be huge not to mention the quality of life while you live there. Interior design can turn a great property into a perfect home or help achieve a better price and more quickly when selling. We have acquired great deals for clients then helped them through all of these avenues to maximize value and when you start to estimate/calculate the collective benefit in the properties worth the figures can be staggering. In addition, our long-standing relationships with various property professionals, means we can negotiate the most favorable fees possible for our clients.

So please do not think we are here just for the super-rich who cannot be bothered to find themselves a place. We are here for the prudent purchaser who realizes that within London the impact of a wise property purchase versus a misguided one can be significant in terms of both finance and your life. There are so many different steps along the way where we can save or make you money as well as time and stress.

Happy New Year from Irvine & Cole, London’s number one property consultant. We trust you had an enjoyable and relaxing Christmas break. We downed tools briefly for some quality family time, but even on New Year’s Eve we made ourselves available to potential clients who were in town from overseas for a limited time. Many of our clients are international and may not be in the UK very often or for long so we make sure we are available when it suits them – regardless of time differences or what would be considered normal working hours. As part of our bespoke service your contact at Irvine & Cole will be accessible to you 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.

At this time of year, many people finally turn their attention to that house move or property purchase they have been considering for some time. If this is you, please be in touch with us for a no obligation chat. Even if you decide not to use us we will be able to give you a great and up-to-date insight into the London property market. Too many buyers take advice from the press – who tend to generalise and sensationalise, or from estate agents who invariably work for the vendor and only have a sale in mind. Don’t be a sheep and buy only when you’re sure everyone else is! Of course this is counterproductive as the increased competition means you will pay over the odds. So don’t sit back and wait to see what the newspapers will tell you in the spring, take the initiative with an independent expert in your corner and get on with your search and purchase now. It never ceases to amaze us how some people are willing to spend millions of pounds without independent advice, in a market place they are unfamiliar with and with so many potential pitfalls. Property can make or lose you significant sums, our job is to make sure you fall in the first category and our track record is impeccable!

We currently have numerous off market properties available in a wide price range. As well as sourcing the dream home or ideal London base, we do a great deal of work with developers and investors who are, of course, focused entirely on return. Whatever your property needs for 2012, get us involved. We wish you all the best for 2012 and would love the opportunity to help make it a happy and prosperous year for you, your family or your business.

As described in our last post, as a leading London buying agent we are still very busy at Irvine & Cole, pushing deals over the exchange line and snapping up some last minute December bargains. But of course at this time it is natural to look back over the past year and forward to the one to come. The markets we operate in have all risen considerably this year and some of the deals we secured early in the year which looked great at the time now look phenomenal. In the last quarter we have arranged hugely profitable off market property sales for clients on assets they bought earlier in the year through us.

Understandably the impact of global financial uncertainty and more immediately the situation in the Eurozone is something we are constantly asked about. We have no crystal ball, just years of experience in our market place, and we remind our clients that it has been under this constant shadow that we have seen rapid growth this year. It now seems inevitable that either the current structure of the Eurozone will collapse or the single currency will survive with a much tighter political and fiscal Union and more centralized powers. This is the kind of uncertainty that makes investors nervous and they will tend to seek safe havens like gold and quality property. In the Autumn of 2008, following the collapse of Lehman Brothers, the reality of the credit crunch became very clear. There was a scramble to convert investments in the global markets into cash or property. We saw a dip in prime central London prices, but three years on Prime Central London Property values have reached new heights. Cash rich vendors, low interest rates, high rents and favourable exchange rates for foreign buyers have certainly helped. But the most important motivation is the disenchantment with stocks and shares, bank deposits and the realisation that even some European Government stocks may be a very risky investment. The tangible nature of bricks and mortar is a big attraction and the rental return of most London property significantly exceeds the interest rates offered by High Street Banks on deposits.

We will not see a satisfactory resolution to the major European issues for some time, and political and financial uncertainty will continue to be a feature of 2012. One thing that will not change is the short of supply of property in prime London postcodes. Theses factors are likely to drive more investment into the property market, especially as a new wave of buyers engage with the market in the New Year. The added value we bring to a deal gives our clients both maximised protection and returns. If you are considering buying in 2012 get in touch with us. Our constant contact with all the people that matter, and regular negotiations means few people are in a better position to let you know what is happening in the market place.

Here at Irvine & Cole, London buying agents, we can hardly believe that it’s nearly December already. I’m sure the thought of Christmas shopping is filling most of you with dread. Why not try something different this year and let us find you the perfect property in the winter sales! While many of our competitors are winding down right about now and starting to enjoy all the office Christmas parties a little too much, we are still very active.
December has traditionally been a busy and productive month for us. This may seem strange to you as agents are forever talking about the market being seasonal and things always going quiet in December. Well this is essentially true and it is for this very reason that it can be the best time to find something. Whilst the people who were thinking about buying start to focus on the festivities ahead and the approaching school holidays we are still braving the conditions for our clients. Those irritating vendors who are; maybe, kind of, thinking about selling, but not sure where they’ll move to, tend to take their homes off the market as they do not want the inconvenience of viewings at this time of year. This leaves us with the ideal combination of motivated vendors and less competition.
We always get the best possible terms for our client but at this time of year it can be a little easier and we often find we achieve even more off the asking price than usual.

It is also a great time of year for the off market property opportunity. We are constantly in contact with the hundreds of relevant contacts we have collated over the years. We find there are lots of people who have decided to sell in the New Year but are not putting the property on the market yet. We regularly get ‘one off’ viewings for our clients this side of Xmas, and well ahead of the competition. The fact our clients are serious enough to have retained a premiere London buying agent means that most vendors are happy to open their doors to us.

Once we have secured a great deal for our clients, a large part of our job is pushing it through as quickly as possible so that it doesn’t get away causing disappointment and expense. Again Christmas looming in the very near future can work as a great motivator and deadline. We pull out all the stops to ensure our clients can relax and enjoy the holidays safe in the knowledge they have exchanged on their property and can look forward to picking up their keys in the New Year.

So whether you want to snap up a winter bargain this side of Xmas or in the January sales don’t dither and wait and see what might or might not happen in the new year – give us a call today!

To give you a little insight into how we work at Irvine and Cole we thought we would give you a glimpse at a relatively typical day of one of our London buying agents:

I get to the office early to start putting together research for a client of ours who is seriously considering an off market development opportunity we have presented him with in Knightsbridge. We do a huge amount of business in the area so I am already very confident on the resale prices but of course I need to demonstrate this to the client with the most up-to-date information. I look at recent sales of comparable properties and also what is currently on the market. As expected there is plenty of evidence to demonstrate our estimated resale figures are if anything conservative. I put the report together, send it to the client and follow up with a call. Although we have first crack at this deal, like all good London development opportunities it will not be around for long.

I have a telephone appointment booked for late morning with an Italian couple who want a pied a terre in South Kensington. Like so many of our new clients they have been referred to us by a former client who was impressed with our service and over the moon with the property we secured them. Their requirements seem fairly simple; a one or two bedroom apartment, on a good floor and road close to where a friend of theirs has an apartment. They are not familiar with the leases we have in the UK, the different styles of property, or the ways in which they can be managed and what it can cost to maintain them. I take time to explain all these issues amongst others and to make sure I have a complete understanding of their needs and preferences, as well as their long term plan for the property. They seem happy promising to come back to me shortly and ask me to e mail our terms and conditions . I hope they use us – there are so many potential pitfalls for them if they try and go it alone in such a complicated and competitive market. Also I had a conversation with an agent friend last week and he mentioned an apartment that would be coming to the market soon that sounded perfect for them.

I meet one of the architects we work with closely for lunch. He has worked with us to get some incredible planning permissions for clients that have enabled them to improve their homes and increase their value. He has also provided some great leads for off market properties from clients who were willing to sell their homes discreetly and some development properties which he knew would come to the market once the planning consent came through. Once again he has an interesting possibility. He is confident he is about to get planning approval for a double basement and second storey extension on mews house in Mayfair. He knows the owner intends to sell once permission comes through.

The afternoon is spent on a whirlwind of ‘previews’ across Knightsbridge and Belgravia for a client wanting a first floor lateral apartment. Previews are where we go and see the property on behalf of our client so we can assess its suitability and note all the negatives (which the agents don’t put in the details) as well as the positives. This process ensure when the client comes to view there are no surprises and none of their valuable time is wasted on unsuitable properties. My findings will be typed up and sent over to the client tonight.

I get back to the office just in time to take the call from my developer client who has decided he does want to offer at the level I suggested on the Knightsbridge site. I phone straight away to put the bid in to the agent’s delight. We have a track record with him and so he knows our clients perform promptly and as promised which is what he and his client wants. He’ll have an answer for me in the morning.

A few more calls to make sure agreed purchases are progressing as they should, updates clients and arrange more previews, then I can head home to type up my report on today’s previews.

Welcome to the new blog of Irvine & Cole, London property consultants. We will endeavour to keep the updates fairly regular and use them to give some insight into what we do and how we do it, as well as to give our perspective on the prime London property market in which we operate. We want our clients and our potential clients to have a clear idea of what we do (or could do) for them, and to give a different angle from the more typical market comments that are out there. Remember, we work for the buyer not the vendor unlike your traditional estate agent does in this country. We have no interest in hyping up the marketplace to try and pressurise people into buying, something agents can sometimes be guilty of, and we do not need to sell newspapers with attention grabbing headlines.

These are strange times at the moment; with every other headline on the television news and in the papers lamenting the looming economic catastrophe, yet all the latest figures on prime London property prices showing they are considerably on the up. The digital property group have recently published statistics demonstrating how after falling slightly in the earlier part of the year, the average property price has risen in these areas from £2,242,536 in May to £2,311,834 in September. This equates to an increase of £750 per day on the average property!

It has certainly been our experience in recent months that there has been a general shortage of property on the market, and quality real estate, sensibly priced, has very quickly been snapped up. More than ever we have had to use our connections to get to properties first and have them wrapped up quickly or meet our client’s needs with off market property.

International demand is what makes these areas so different from anywhere else in the country. Many of our clients are international and we have found more and more of them deciding to situate funds in what they feel is the relative security of prime London property, rather than risk it elsewhere.

Despite the current strength of demand for prime London property we cannot ignore the growing shadow of the European and global fragility. We are encouraging our clients to be cautious and have repeatedly in recent times advised them against paying any more for a property we were bidding on for them. Of course, at Irvine & Cole, we always do all we can to ensure the best possible terms are agreed for our clients. Most of our clients look to the medium or long term but if there is a softening of the market next year we believe the savings we make can offset this. Also, we specialise in finding properties where value can be added. Our expertise enables us to see these opportunities where others have missed them and our connections bring them to us constantly. We are encouraging our clients to consider properties that offer potential to increase value to protect them against any potential drop in the market. We can project manage works if they want them done immediately or help gain the planning permission or lease extension that will add value.

The current market place is working to the advantage of our many buy to let investors with interest rates so low and rents so high. We know how to identify the most profitable but to let properties and consistently achieve higher than average yields for our clients.
With their money doing very little for them in savings and the volatility of the markets right now, you can understand the appeal of the solid annual returns on a good London property investment as well as the proven history of long term capital growth.

As ever, to discuss any aspect of the London property market or a particular search, please feel free to contact us at any time. Look out for the next exciting instalment on this blog!