“The place is amazing! We are so happy!”.
As you may know I have a few rules about buying property that I repeat time and time again.
One of the key ones is: “Be patient and selective but be in a position to move swiftly when you find the right opportunity”.
I know this isn’t exciting but then the fundamentals rarely are, which is why the majority of buyers ignore them much to their regret later.
In this instance, my client was referred to me by one of his business partners whom I had helped acquire an apartment in Knightsbridge. So, he had been warned that I would spend the majority of my time advising him and his family not to buy property and that most of what would be available to buy would be rubbish and not even worth seeing.
As the clients are based in Europe, this was exactly what they wanted as their spare time is precious and didn’t want to fly over to see average properties.
While the first four properties I showed them were what they had asked for, they weren’t quite right with one exception – a stunning apartment with incredible views. The issue was the price and I said that it was one to monitor.
And so, I continued the search. Frankly, most of what I found on and off the market continued to be decidedly average and not worth them seeing, but after 6 months it became clear that, the owner of the apartment they had liked on the initial viewing had become more flexible on price. Unsurprising as it had been available to buy for roughly 8 years!
Of course, you may be thinking, why hadn’t it sold in that time and what was wrong with it, which is exactly what my clients asked. This was my response:
“I think the property has not sold because it has been handled incredibly badly. The issue is that they paid far too much for the unmodernised property, i.e. £4m. They then spent a lot developing it including reconfiguration and started with a guide price of £6.75m in 2017. This was clearly ambitious…”
Indeed, the owners had turned down much higher offers than what we eventually bought it for, because they had been anchored to an unachievable price. Obviously, the amount of time that the property had been on the market did deter many buyers, but it is often a mistake to follow the crowd.
Other than the price, this is an excellent property that had been refurbished to an incredibly high standard by a very reputable firm. So, once you have established that a property is fundamentally sound, it is just a question of negotiating effectively.
My clients now have a wonderful home in London or to quote them when they flew over on completion to see it again:
“The place is amazing! We are so happy!”.
If you are planning to acquire a property in London, would it be a bad idea to discover the strategies & tactics you need to use to find the best property your money can buy and then negotiate the lowest price possible?
To request a complimentary, hard-back copy of my book, The Insider’s Guide To Acquiring £1m to £100m Property in London, or to request a free Strategy Session to discuss your plans, simply email [email protected] or call 02034578855 (+442034578855 from outside the UK).
