Consider a buying agent

You don’t have to become best friends with an estate agent, but replying to emails and giving honest feedback are Grant Bates’ easy wins for being best served by those front-of-house in the industry. “It also saves you time long-term, because once the agent knows exactly what you want, they’re not pestering you all the time,” he says.

In his role at Hamptons, Bates – the most followed corporate UK agent on Instagram (@grantjbates) – works as both a selling agent and a buying agent, a lesser-known service most popular with US and European clients, “because they’re more familiar with the service and they see its value. A lot of UK buyers think they can just do it themselves, but there’s definitely a lot of advantages to having a buying agent on your side.” The main one is his confidence in negotiating at least 2 per cent off a ticket price, which covers the cost of the service itself. A buying agent will do the donkey work of whittling down prospective properties, carrying out due diligence, and supplying area information such as schools. The service isn’t reserved for oligarchs: with Hamptons, it typically involves a retainer of between £2,000 and £5,000, recurring every six months, which is offset against the final fee (usually 2 per cent). It’s a savvy service for those with their sights set on a very specific area, and opens up access to off-market properties.

Bates’ own home in north London, however, was listed very much in plain sight and languished on the market for almost a year. His wife Eloise, an interior designer, initially expressed interest, but the £3.75 million price was well above their budget. It crept down to £3 million, “but it was never, ever going to get that,” says Bates. A call from the agent eventually seeking offers led to the couple sealing the deal at a more palatable £2.215 million. “There’s a herd mentality with buying – people take reassurance when someone else wants a house too, because it validates their own interest,” he says of the psychology. In this scenario, due to its inflated price, the house wasn’t snapped up in the halo period of eight weeks, after which many prospective buyers discount a property on the assumption that there must be something seriously wrong with it.

Patience paid off for

Bates, but what can others do to get their hands on a property out of financial reach? Like Russell, he suggests a personal touch, such as trying to build a direct rapport with the seller or writing a letter explaining why you love the house. “I am not suggesting that a client will sell substantially under market as a result,” he says, “but it certainly helps, especially for families that have made their equity already, and know it is going to someone who will cherish it as much as they did.

Grant Bates waited while the price of his target home in north London fell