Home Finding Made Easy

The biggest splurge for many is buying a home. I love the big search for a new pad. It’s addictive looking and wondering if the next property will be the one. Plenty of my friends begin very interested in searching for a home, only for it to become progressively more like hard work. Especially when it becomes increasingly impossible to find somewhere that is either cheap enough, big enough, not near a good school, too near a noisy school…

The simple solution would be to hire a home finder like Kirsty and Phil from one of my favourite programmes Location, Location, Location. Phil himself has his own company Garrington Home Finders. 

Other UK home finding companies that I could find on the web include:

The County Homesearch - Nationwide search
Relocate UK - Nationwide 
Britton Relocation Services - Yorkshire 
Property Wise - Hampshire & East Dorset 
Peter Long & Partners - South West 
Essex Homesearch  
Highland Homesearch - Scotland 
Kent Homefinders 

Advantages 
* Good contacts with all the Estate Agents who inform the home finders when a new property comes on the market immediately. The Estate Agents take home finder companies much more seriously than the average Joe because they know there is a serious buyer that has paid for the services of a home finder.

* They may know about properties that aren’t even being sold by Estate Agents.

* Handle the negotiations with the seller and oversee the conveyancing through to completion.

* Most importantly valuable time will be saved ruling out properties that aren’t suitable.

Disadvantages 
* Cost. Varying from £250 total fees to £750 initial registration plus the greater of either 1.75% of the purchase price or 15% of any savings negotiated. Home finders all believe that the reduction they get for you on the property outweighs the costs paid to them. Of course you could get the same reduction negotiating yourself.

In these credit crunch times the home finders are really struggling. It’s been reported that even Phil Spencer (from Location, Location, Location) has downsized his company, shutting one office already in Knutsford, Cheshire. Maybe a reduced rate could be negotiated with them?

Has anyone experienced using a home finder services? Did they get a reduction in the property price that you may not have been able to get yourself? Please leave your comments below.

The savers option to home finding will be in the next blog. Meanwhile I’m going to put the house in the picture above on my Christmas list and hope for the best. It’s for sale for a cool £3,000,000 via Hamptons.

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Tagged as: buying a home, Dream home, home, Home buying, home finders, Home finding, homefinders, homesearch, house buying, house finding, location location location, relocate uk, relocation services