Why choose Mercury Homesearch?

The Worst Business Model Ever

I founded Mercury Homesearch because I became fed up with the service and advice I was receiving from estate agents when I was acquiring luxury property for myself.

They were sending me properties that had only a passing resemblance to what I had asked for, they were hopelessly ill-informed on any property I was interested in and were constantly telling me how the property would likely sell in a matter of days if not hours.

In short, I couldn’t understand why I was taking advice from someone who was working in direct conflict with my best interests. After all the agents are paid by sellers to achieve the highest price possible. In addition, their job is not to find you your ideal home but to sell any of their clients’ homes to any of the applicants (that is estate agent jargon for you, the buyer) that have registered with them.

Is it any wonder that most buyers make poor decisions and become incredibly frustrated with the entire process?

Consequently, I decided that there had to be a better way and founded Mercury on a single simple principle – by definition, there are only a handful of what I call “Best in Breed” properties in any area and price range, so we should spend the majority of our time advising our clients not to buy or even visit properties.

It’s a shockingly bad business model but it works, which is why we receive such an exceptionally high number of referrals from our clients. The following comments from a client will give you an insight as to why:

I avoided making a dreadful and expensive mistake

“I was referred to Mercury Homesearch by a friend. Although I already own property in London and have numerous property investments elsewhere, I had been advised that Jeremy could find me a better apartment than I would be able to and negotiate a better price, so I asked him to represent me.

Initially, I was surprised at how few properties he was showing me, but he assured me that he was unimpressed with what he was seeing and that I would have been wasting my time viewing them. This was a refreshing change to being sent all manner of unsuitable suggestions.

However, one afternoon, I spotted a superb apartment on the internet, which looked perfect, and asked Jeremy why he hadn’t mentioned it. He said that it was too noisy and he questioned the quality of the workmanship.
Trusting his advice, I forgot about it until two months later when I discovered that a friend of mine had bought the apartment. I asked Jeremy what he thought. He maintained his view and said that he felt the buyers had also overpaid because of these issues.

As I needed to rent somewhere in London while I waited for my apartment to be refurbished, I asked my friend if I could visit the flat with a view to renting it for a short period. We really liked it and decided to rent it. Obviously, I was rather concerned by the advice I was receiving from Jeremy as I would have readily bought the apartment two months before and had clearly missed an opportunity.

However, within a week of moving into the apartment, it was evident that Jeremy had been right. There proved to be a lot of noise in the street late at night and early morning and the standard of the workmanship was average even if everything looked good on the surface.

I would have been livid if we had bought the flat, but Jeremy could have quite easily persuaded me to do so and pocketed his commission. Fortunately he genuinely had my best interests at heart, so not only did he save me a huge amount of time, but I avoided making a dreadful and expensive mistake.

This standard of advice and trustworthiness is rare in the luxury property market. So, I highly recommend you ask Jeremy to represent you even if you think you know the London property market. He has “inside” information and knowledge which is invaluable. If you are new to buying luxury property in London then you would be mad not to seek his advice.”

Mr H Garmoyle