We are thrilled to announce that we have won “Best Property Finder, London UK” and “Best Property Finder UK” in the Luxury Collection International Property Awards in association with Bloomberg and Google. We had only entered the award for Best Property Finder London, but as a regional winner we were then entered into the competition for the whole of the UK and were delighted to hear that we had won overall! We are continually striving for excellence and invest heavily in staff development and ensuring that our people continue to learn so that we are always at the top of our game.

The Directors have believed for a long time that our truly bespoke approach, finding property off-market if necessary sets us apart from everyone else.  Last year 68% of our Clients fell for properties which we sourced just for them.  These were all properties which were not on the market and which our Clients wouldn’t have found for themselves. In this market, with everyone nervous about whether prices are going to stay strong, “off-market” has become the new buzzword in property because vendors and developers want to try to charge a very high price – sometimes more than double the true worth of a property, and sometimes uninformed overseas investors in particular, will be prepared to pay these highly inflated prices.  And so agents have started ‘offering things discretely to a select few’ as they put it, which usually means, offering things to a few nutters who might be prepared to pay well-over the odds.

We’ve been sourcing property off-market for decades, but we do so by identifying properties which would work perfectly for our Clients and then taking the time to get to know the owners of these truly great properties and persuading them to let us show our Clients and then negotiating a fair price reflective of the market price – not a crazy price, at least from the buyers point of view!

Anyway, I digress.  It is great to hear our Clients say good things about us and lovely to receive some public recognition.  So to all our Clients, thank you, for making our job such a pleasure to do – we hope to work with you again soon!

As property search agents we regularly instruct surveyors on behalf of our clients to carry out full building surveys and valuations – whatever the value of the property in question,  and we were therefore very interested in a story in The Telegraph this week about the increase in litigation from homebuyers against surveyors.

According to some solicitors there has been a 20 per cent increase in the number of people attempting to sue their surveyors. Falling house prices have led home-owners to launch proceedings against surveyors for over valuing their properties in the first place.

For most buyers, a valuation for mortgage purposes is for the bank – not the buyer.  This means that there is no recourse for the buyer if the valuation is incorrect, even though it is the buyer who has to pay for something that is essentially worthless!

Although we are property search agents, our job does not end once we have found the client their perfect property – and we always recommend that our clients pay that little bit extra for a full structural survey and valuation, whether they are buying a pied a terre in the city or a mansion in the countryside. Without a good survey you don’t know what you’re investing your money in, and although obvious warning signs such as subsidence cracks and damp can be readily spotted, more serious structural issues are often not as obvious.

If your dream home should be hiding any problems then you can decide whether to walk away, or re-negotiate the deal to compensate for any work that is recommended by your surveyor. At Manse & Garret Property Search we do everything within our reach to ensure that our client is buying at the right price.

Technorati Tags: House prices in London, London Buyer's Agent, surveyors

Tags: House prices in London, London Buyer's Agent, surveyors

As London Buyer’s Agents we were interested to read a recent interview with The Telegraph (http://tgr.ph/n7WTGf) where Eric Pickles, the secretary of state for communities and local government has said that it would be a, “very big mistake”, to go ahead with any form of the Liberal Democrat’s proposed “mansion tax” on properties worth over £1 million.

A 1% annual tax applied to houses worth more than £1 million was first proposed at the Liberal Democrat party conference of 2009. The suggested threshold was later increased to properties worth more than £2 million, and this year the policy was refined further, with the Liberal Democrat Party suggesting that there should be a levy of 1% on capital gains tax from the sale of a property after the first £1million. .

This is an obvious attempt to make owners of high value property in the UK, whether British or foreign citizens, to pay up in order to share the burden caused by the national deficit, a questionable source of revenue when you stop to consider that an overhaul of the current council tax system has been estimated to cost upwards of £250million.

Although unlikely to temper overseas buyers’ zeal for good quality, high-end property in prime central London, a “mansion tax” is likely to dissuade middle-class British buyers from progressing up the property ladder. They are instead likely to decide to remain where they are, which would decrease the amount of property below £1million that comes onto the market, negatively affecting both ends of the market.

It is also possible for an astute property investor to buy property below the £1 million mark, and develop the property sufficiently after its official government valuation and still benefit from their investment, which makes the £1 million threshold seem rather arbitrary indeed.

There would be an uneven burden on home-owners in London and the South-East where the value of property continues to increase despite the recession. Eric Pickles rightly said last week that it would be, “imposing taxation on the back of changes in property value”. Following Eric Pickle’s interview it seems unlikely for now that any version of the “mansion tax” is likely to be passed under this coalition government, however much the Liberal Democrats want to replace the 50p tax rate for high earners with a tax for so-called “unearned wealth”. This would negatively affect people who are house-rich, but cash-poor, and whose life earnings have been channelled into their property, with a view of it being a retirement safety net, or a legacy for their children. Many people view their home as an investment, and I don’t believe that people should be taxed for choosing to invest their money well, and having their savings in bricks and mortar.

Technorati Tags: Buyers agents, government policy, Hackney house prices, House prices in London, London property, mansion tax, Property News, recession

Tags: Buyers agents, government policy, Hackney house prices, House prices in London, London property, mansion tax, Property News, recession