There are various types of purchasers who all have slightly different criteria regarding the type of property they are seeking to buy and the reason for the purchase. A fund manager may have a hypothetical ideal property that they would like to add to their portfolio to create their ideal portfolio balance, a REIT may be targeting specific properties for a site assembly exercise, a family trust may be seeking an asset that will perform well now and continue to do so for the next few generations, a property company may be seeking a building that will hit a short term return criteria for their investors, a private investor may be seeking an asset that will protect their wealth and they will be proud to walk past it knowing it is theirs, a developer could be seeking a property suitable for conversion to use that they believe will outperform other uses, an owner occupier will have a specific location and layout requirement, etc.
At Kingly, we seek to fully understand each potential purchaser’s requirement to only send appropriate buying opportunities, avoiding properties where there is a special purchaser or another sector of buyers who are likely to pay more. Working as a team is important, building a relationship of mutual respect and trust. It is rare that the first property considered results in a purchase, but hopefully, it will be before the 100th!
Buying a property in Central London is not easy. It is very competitive. Ideally, every purchase would be “off-market” with no pressure from other purchasers. However there generally needs to be a reason for a vendor to sell their property off-market, ie that the buyer is a known special purchaser, the buyer has a fantastic reputation for performing quickly at market levels or the buyer is consistently outbidding all other buyers on properties that are openly marketed.
Whilst Kingly has managed to secure a number of off-market properties over the years, the majority of purchasers are of properties that have been openly marketed. This requires a good relationship with all other agents that are operating in Central London to ensure that we are aware of all properties that are being sold and to then use that good relationship to help secure the information a purchaser may need to form a well-researched offer and then provide our insights of how other buyers are pricing the property and where we expect a successful bid will need to be.
Each potential purchaser uses Kingly in a different way. Some have their own in-house analysts so will only require any Kingly appraisals as a check, others will rely on Kingly to research the occupational markets and provide detailed appraisals running different scenarios and others will require Kingly to help source additional specialist advice when required. The important thing is that we work as a team.
Should a purchaser wish to buy the property, Kingly then has two tasks, secure the property and do so on the best possible terms. If off-market, this puts Kingly’s negotiation skills into action, which starts from the first communication. If on-market, Kingly’s market intelligence becomes more important than knowing what other parties are doing.
In the event that an offer is accepted, we take care in ensuring Heads of Terms are worded appropriately to facilitate a smooth transition to the exchange of contracts. Daily communication is the norm during this period working as a team to ensure that all due diligence is undertaken and dealing with any problem that may arise in the most appropriate manner.
It is sometimes hard to know when to become excited that a purchase is going to happen as there are so many little steps that need to be taken and hurdles cleared with a constant risk of a larger external event occurring that could not be predicted and is out of everyone’s control. Kingly will always point out anything they discover in their due diligence that may affect value, it will then be the purchaser’s decision on whether to proceed to make an offer or with the transaction at a later stage. Equally, there can often be a solution and Kingly will work hard to find and negotiate that solution to keep a transaction live.
When contracts are complete, the sensation for the agent can be relief that it got over the line and for the purchaser, it may be that the real work starts here as they now have a building strategy to implement. However, we believe it is important to stop for a moment and toast the transaction, they aren’t easy to do and a pat on each other’s back is needed every now and then.
