The secret life of a buying agent: Part 2
Friday, 5 August 2011 11:39 AM
Last week, we brought you the first half of our interview with top buying agent Tracy Kellett. In the second instalment, she fills us in on the latest London property trends and reveals what she really thinks of Kirstie and Phil.
Are there any general trends you've observed in what London buyers are looking for?
At the lower end of the market, the working from home thing is becoming more and more important – people want the shed in the garden. At the top end in central London it's almost de rigeur that you buy a house and promptly dig out the basement and stick a swimming pool in it – God knows what that's doing to our water table! Media rooms, also usually in the basement, are very popular, and buyers at the very top end are increasingly looking for security and concierge services.
How about areas – where's popular right now?
People are lemmings: there tend to be little areas which attract the same PLUs – People Like Us. Chiswick is very BBC and is also home to several stand-up comedians and Ant and Dec. Wandsworth and Clapham are nappy valley – the first baby comes along and the goal is to get into Southfields, Wandsworth or Clapham.
You've got Belsize Park, which used to be the poor relation to Hampstead and is now just as expensive though not as nice in my opinion. People like David Walliams and Gwyneth Paltrow have moved there so that's becoming another celebrity ghetto. Notting Hill has been trendy for a good while; Americans always say they want to live in Notting Hill until we tell them they haven't got enough money!
How did you become a buying agent?
I was a relocation agent and then worked as an estate agent. I had a celebrity client who was really, really nice, and I sold him this house which I knew he was paying £200,000 too much for, but because I was working for the vendor I couldn’t say anything. So I thought, "This is ridiculous. For those sorts of numbers, if I were a buying agent this guy would probably be paying me around £20,000 and I'd have saved him £180,000."
I thought there had to be a market for this, so I spoke to Phil Spencer, who was running his company Garringtons back then. They had so many clients they couldn’t handle them all, so I set up a deal with him where I handled the enquiries he couldn’t do – and that kick-started the business.
Would you say that you need to get some experience as an estate agent before becoming a buying agent?
People will argue not but I think you do. You need to know your enemy! There are a lot of Chelsea housewives running around doing tiny areas because they 'know people' but it's not the same as being a professional buying agent. You've got to have a few years under your belt to have come across the issues that will come up. Some understanding of the structure of houses is also useful, and you obviously need to understand the property market as well. Most of it is common sense but you need to have the experience behind you.
Do you think the role played by Kirstie Allsopp and Phil Spencer in Location, Location, Location gives an accurate portrayal of being a buying agent?
The goal of a buying agent is to actually buy, which they don't seem to do much of! I don't think they negotiate hard enough. They're like, "Ooh, should we put in an offer three grand below asking price?" They're not exactly tough from the ones I've seen, and they don't seem to research the vendor's situation. In real life, a buying agent would investigate this because if the seller's in a hurry to get the cash, you can use that as a hook to renegotiate.
It's a bit soft basically – but it's a TV programme and it is enjoyable to watch. What it has done is bring what I do into the fore so that people now understand that there's buyer representation. A lot of the other TV shows – including Restoration Home – are quiet appalling because they just float in some celeb who has no understanding of property. Sarah Beeny's very good, I know people who worked with her way back when she was developing, and she really knows her stuff.
You used to be an estate agent but now you're on the 'other side' – is it an antagonistic relationship?
You'd think so wouldn’t you –but no. Generally, estate agents are delighted to be dealing with us, the reason being that buying and selling property is utterly emotional on both sides, and when you've got a buying agent talking to an estate agent, you're taking the emotion out of it. They also know that our clients are retained, which means they have to put money down to have our services and therefore are committed.
With stock as tight as it currently is, how do you make sure you're the first to see great properties?
It's all about relationships: stuffy suited property experts may talk about graphs and statistics but it's nothing to do with that – it's about me as a buying agent making sure that my client is the favourite in the estate agent's eyes. And that's just charm and relationship, bottom line.
We recently bought a big, beautiful house in Windlesham. The vendor was a very high-level businessman, as was my client and the other two bidders. One of the other people was offering more than us but he was so arrogant that we secured the property for less money than he offered purely on the basis that the owner didn't want to do business with the other guy. He didn’t have a buying agent, he was just negotiating himself and he got the estate agent's back up.
The agent is going to tell the vendor who he thinks the best buyer is, who's least likely to mess him around – and, particularly at the top end, the vendor just wants an easy sale. Another £50,000 on £3 million is not going to change his life and he doesn’t have time to spend three or four months having to deal with some prat of a buyer. Again, it's about knowing vendor motivation.
Can you describe a typical day from start to finish?
Not really, no! There's three parts to my job: sitting in the office on the phone, ringing every single agent who's involved with the area I want and asking what they've got, because the good stuff's probably not on the website. I don't use portals because half the stuff's already gone.
Another day will be spent previewing, just wandering around going to see as many properties as I can. It's essential to view a place before showing it to your client because, for example, you might hear of a ground-floor flat but until you walk in you don't know how 'ground floor' it feels. One place I saw recently in Chelsea was beautiful but one end of the flat overlooked the boiler houses and at the other end, all you could see through the window were legs walking past. And you can't get that from an online listing.
The final element is very similar to what estate agents do – making sure the lawyers are doing their job, sorting out the building regs and so on. So it's 30 per cent in the office and the rest on the road.
What's the most frustrating thing about your job?
The P word – when people say "It's the principle". It's a really combative relationship, that of vendor and buyer, and by the end of the buying process people can't see the wood for the trees – so many things become a major issue of 'principle', from a £140 indemnity policy to the curtains in a £2 million house.
It's a lovely job, but it's also very, very stressful because of the emotions involved – and you're sucking up those emotions like a sponge. I do a good six-day week and two or three evenings a week as well.
And the most satisfying?
It's wonderful when you sign the deal but I'm long in the tooth now and I don't get that excited because things go wrong – so it's the day of exchange, that moment when you hand the keys over, that's the best bit. It's fabulous.
To read the first half of our interview with Tracy, in which she revealed some of her clients' most bizarre requests and discussed cultural differences in taste, click here.
Tracy Kellett is the founder of BDI Home Finders. For more information, check out BDIHomeFinders.co.uk or call 0845 603 6110.
Interview by Ele Cooper
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