Client testimonials

I wanted to acquire a home in Knightsbridge or South Kensington. However, being based overseas, I faced various challenges: I was worried that I would not see the best opportunities and might overpay for a property because all the information seemed to be provided by the estate agents who are employed by the sellers. Therefore taking advice from them was not necessarily deemed a sensible option.

I wanted to be represented by an expert and having read The Prime London Property Puzzle, it was clear that Jeremy McGivern was the stand out specialist in acquiring property in central London. I am very pleased that we chose to work with him.

Instead of sending us details of dozens of potential properties, we were presented with a handful of carefully selected opportunities. Not only did he explain the positive aspects of each property, he was also very clear about what he thought might be the potential drawbacks for us – these happened to be minor but it was refreshing to have such an honest appraisal.

I also quizzed him about numerous properties he had not sent us but which I had seen on the internet. He knew them all and explained why they were unsuitable – poor views, photographs that made the properties look much better than they were, noisy roads, poor addresses or the fact that they were simply overpriced. He saved us days of wasted viewings.

All of the houses he showed us met our requirements, but one in particular stood out as having great potential and at a good price. Jeremy arranged for one of his trusted builders to inspect the property before we made an offer in order to guide us on the cost of the extensive renovations and advise us on what would be possible from a planning perspective.

Jeremy handled the bid process and manged to negotiate a significant discount despite there being other parties bidding on the property. He then co-ordinated the solicitors and surveyors to ensure a swift and efficient transaction. I was surprised at the number of issues that arose but these were dealt with in a very professional manner and he and the solicitors clearly explained why they recommended various courses of action – the UK legal system is not as transparent as I had expected!

Arguably the most impressive part of the entire service was that Jeremy advised us to buy a property that was 30% under our maximum budget. This proves not only his expertise but also integrity as he would have received a higher fee if we had bought a more expensive property.

I cannot recommend Jeremy highly enough. If you are planning to acquire a property in London, he will find you an exceptional property and save you time, stress and money. His fee has already paid for itself several times over.

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 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 property in London then you would be mad not to seek his advice.

There is one fundamental question I ask when looking for advisers: are they trustworthy?

This is essential as there is invariably an underlying conflict of interest – anyone who is paid only if a transaction completes is incentivised to ensure a transaction takes place. Will this cloud their judgement and/or advice?

Of course, one can never be certain despite researching and interviewing potential advisers, so the proof invariably comes with experience.

Jeremy McGivern at Mercury Homesearch has been advising me and my family on our London property acquisitions for over ten years. In that time he has helped us acquire several apartments and houses.

His advice has always been clear and backed up with sound comparable data. More importantly he is quick to highlight the downsides of any given property. In fact he spends more time persuading me why I should not be buying a property rather than trying to sell properties to me. His conservative nature means that if he is even vaguely positive about a property then I know that it at least deserves consideration.

The fact that we have bought numerous homes for different members of the family through Jeremy highlights the belief we have in his expertise, but also his trustworthiness. The proof is also in the result of each transaction.

Consequently I have recommended him to friends and business acquaintances and I recommend that you ask him to advise you in your property acquisition.

I can strongly recommend Mercury’s services as a property search agent. Whilst I was living abroad and with infrequent visits to the UK, Mercury helped me find and purchase a flat within a very short time and in a competitive market. I am inexperienced in the London property market and one key advantage was Mercury’s single-minded focus on understanding exactly what type of flat I wanted and in what location.

That having been achieved I knew I could trust them not to bother me with proposals that did not fit my requirement, and I knew also that any flats they did propose were put forward after a rigorous filtering process. Further, Mercury are absolutely to be trusted, and it was a comfort throughout the process to know that they were acting entirely with my interests in mind.

If you live in India and are planning to acquire a property in prime central London, we strongly recommend that you ask Mercury Homesearch to represent you. The way property is bought and sold in the UK is very different to India and the process was far more complicated than we had anticipated.

We are based in Mumbai and although we spent a lot of time in London looking for suitable properties, we were not sure what represented good value – each area and even streets in the same area varied hugely in price. Consequently we needed someone to advise us on location, price; to handle the negotiations and then to co-ordinate the complex legal process.

Unfortunately, it was clear that we could not listen to the estate agents as they were acting solely with the seller’s interest in mind. Fortunately a friend in Mumbai recommended Mercury as he had already benefited from the service offered by them, so we knew that we could rely on their advice.

We were delighted to agree a price on a newly refurbished house and assumed that the transaction would be reasonably straightforward as the seller was a property developer. However, he proved to be extremely difficult, making unrealistic demands and was generally very unhelpful. Fortunately, Mercury and the specialist property lawyer they had recommended dealt with the many issues, which saved us time and a great deal of aggravation. In fact if they had not been representing us it is highly unlikely that we would have bought the beautiful home we now have.

In addition, they have gone above and beyond the call of duty – they regularly check on our house while we are in India and have been kind enough to source things for the house. We know we can simply make contact and they will make the necessary arrangements quickly and efficiently.

In our experience, we have learnt to trust them with handling all aspects of purchase. These include selecting the right area, the right property in the area, handling price negotiations, closing the sale, documentation and execution of the transaction. The service rendered is of highest standard and flawless. Honestly it has exceeded our expectations. If you wish to acquire a property in London and make an astute purchase, Mercury Homesearch are the first people you should call upon.

We recommend them whole-heartedly.

Jeremy was recommended to me by a friend, and without his services I would undoubtedly not have found the property I ended up acquiring.

As my target property was in a highly competitive segment of the property market, Jeremy was very helpful in sifting through all the substandard properties and also more crucially in getting to new properties faster that they were made available to the general public.

Once I had visited a handful of properties with Jeremy so that he precisely understood my requirements, it would almost have been possible to bid on a property purely on his recommendation. Jeremy’s patience and dedication to finding the right property were much appreciated as the search process took far longer than I had initially expected and at no point during the search did I feel any pressure to compromise.

When the right property did eventually appear on the market, I was the first person to visit it and with Jeremy’s help closed on the deal very swiftly. Without Jeremy I would undoubtedly have needed to make big compromises or I would still be searching today!

We live in Brazil and wanted to acquire an investment property in London. This is not a market we know well and obviously did not have the time or ability to carry out the necessary research from so far away. Fortunately Mercury Homesearch came highly recommended.

The process started with a telephone consultation to discuss our requirements. Jeremy insisted on discussing the smallest details to ensure that he would not trouble us with unsuitable properties. Over the next few weeks he sent us details of the best apartments within our criteria. He had previewed every suitable property, so was able to give us an accurate appraisal of the finest apartments including what he regarded were the disadvantages of each. Consequently we had total market coverage, but only received information on a handful of properties.

Once we had a suitable shortlist of properties we visited London. We were taken by chauffeur driven car to see the properties and Jeremy added a couple of new properties that had become available. We discussed the merits of each property on site and finally decided on two properties we really liked. Jeremy then gave us advice on target prices and handled the negotiations accordingly.

Unfortunately one property was offered a very high price by another party and Jeremy advised us not to bid higher. Fortunately he was able to secure the other apartment in Belgravia at a good price. He then handled the complicated legal process co-ordinating the solicitor, surveyors, financiers and estate agents to ensure as smooth a transaction as possible. This saved us a lot of time and stress as the English system for buying a home is not the most efficient.

If you are planning to acquire a property in London we would highly recommend using Mercury. They were very knowledgeable, offered a very high standard of service and handled everything efficiently. Consequently we have acquired an excellent apartment in Belgravia on very good terms with no stress or hassle.