You see a property on a website or in a magazine.
It looks perfect.
You call the agent who says:
“I’m afraid that property has already sold. However, let me take your details and I’ll register you, so you hear about any others we have”.
This will also happen to you even if you are registered with the agents. Indeed, it is one of the biggest concerns buyers have – not being shown the best opportunities because the agents favour certain buyers.
Or as one of my clients described it to me:
“In fly fishing they say you can’t catch a fish with your hook in the air”.
Yet this is exactly what most people try in the property market. They wait for the estate agents to contact them and/or rely on property alerts. But this is simply having your hook in the air and hoping fish will jump onto it.
To be actively in the market means speaking to all the agents in your target area on a weekly basis and be out inspecting properties.
Successful timing is made possible by time spent on finding your ideal home or investment over time. You have to keep your hook in the water. This means you are constantly and consistently searching for your criteria, watchful for the moment opportunity surfaces.
You can never know when that will be and if you don’t know the market inside out then you will miss the opportunity because you won’t recognise it or you will be too slow to act because you will need to do your research while another knowledgeable buyer will simply acquire it in the meantime.
Rest assured all the good opportunities will be taken. The only question is, by whom? As simple as it sounds the truth is that those who take them are those who best understand the conditions that create them.
Opportunities are created by economic forces but also personal issues. People tend to focus on the first while forgetting the power of the second, e.g. a family needing to move, a landlord desperate to sell for tax reasons, etc. These are the moments smart buyers act.
Unfortunately, no-one is going to ring a bell to tell you which sellers will accept low offers. Even if a property alert could do this, it would go out to thousands of buyers, so
what advantage would that give you? And that is just the properties that are on the open market, let alone the huge number that are never advertised.
The good news is that very few buyers really ever have total market coverage even if they think they are actively looking. Yes, they are seeing properties but how many of the best opportunities are they seeing and recognising?
This means you can give yourself an incredible advantage. Is actively looking time consuming? Absolutely. But if you are planning to acquire a property in London, it is a serious investment (this is also true if you are planning to buy a home as you have the emotional as well as financial investment). So, is it a bad idea to spend time finding the best property your money can buy?
Yes, it’s easy to acquire an average property, but if you would rather do better than mediocre then I have written a book, The Insider’s Guide To Acquiring £1m to £100m Property in London, which reveals the tested and proven strategies that I use to find my clients the best properties their money can buy and negotiate prices they didn’t think possible.
I’m happy to send you a complimentary copy, just email jeremy@mercuryhomesearch.com or call 02034578855 (+442034578855 from outside the UK).
