When you are looking to buy a home, you will start out with a list of ‘must haves’, ‘nice to haves’ and ‘no’s’. As the search progresses, your priorities often shift and the things that you thought were important to you might become something you are willing to compromise on. Does that fourth bedroom really need to be a double if you are using it as an occasional office? Does the garden need to be that big if there is a lovely park at the end of the road? Its all about separating the ‘need’s’ from the ‘want’s. However, the one thing about buying that is harder to quantify is that feeling you get when you walk into a property for the first time. Yes, it may tick pretty much everything on your list and be in the right location, but does it have the X Factor? I have been calling it this long before Simon Cowell brought it to our living rooms every Saturday night! Its that feeling you get in the pit of your stomach – basically you can see yourself living in that property and it feels like home.
Because of this, I always advise buyers to keep open minds when looking – all too often they will reject properties from the pictures or floorplans they see on the websites. Our job is to get to know all we can about our clients and take them to see houses that may not exactly fit their list, but could be perfect for them because it has that certain something that no amount of clever photography can illustrate.
When I bought my first flat in Fulham in 1993, we had had it on our books for several weeks but were struggling to get buyers in to see it because it needed work and was 15 minutes walk to the tube ( 10 minutes max is an absolute non compromise for most of the professionals that tend to buy in this area). I finally persuaded one of my buyers to come and see it and as soon as I walked through the door my stomach flipped. My buyer was showing signs of interest and I was panicking that she might want to make an offer…My manager at the time said we had to give her first option – after several visits and 3 nerve wracking days for me, she decided it was too much work for her budget. I offered the same day and spent 10 very happy years living there. It was scruffy, had a north facing garden and was in a street that was still ‘up and coming’. All the things I didn’t think I would compromise on – I learnt a big lesson about the whole buying process that day!