One agent · four homes at a time
I carry four instructions at once so every viewing is led by someone who has stood in the loft, read the title plan and met the neighbours. If a house is wrong for you, I will say so in the hallway rather than in a follow-up email.
Currently on the books
Each entry says what the house is good at and what it will ask of you. Guide prices reflect what I would advise a seller to accept, not an opening gambit.
A 1930s semi opened across the back in 2019, so the kitchen now takes the afternoon light and the old scullery wall is gone. The trade is upstairs: three bedrooms, and the third only works as a study or a nursery. Boiler was replaced two winters ago; the flat roof over the extension will want checking at around year twelve.
A mid-terrace with original floors and a chain-free seller who has already moved out, which makes this the quickest completion on my list. It is on a through road, so come at rush hour before you decide. Single glazing at the front is the obvious first project, and the conservation area means replacements must match the existing profiles.
Four bedrooms, a proper hall and the best ceiling heights I have listed this year. It sits inside the flood-risk mapping for the lower ward, so insurance quotes should be gathered before you offer — I keep the environment agency extract on file and will send it with the brochure. Garden is long, north-facing and currently unloved.
Comes with a paddock strip and a right of way across the neighbouring track, which is registered and in good order. Heating is oil, so budget for the tank inspection and expect higher running costs than the town houses above. Broadband is now fibre to the cabinet rather than to the premises — adequate for one home office, tight for two.
Field notes
Four wards I work in daily. No ranking — the right one depends on whether you are buying for the commute, the housing stock or the garden.
If you are selling
Six stages, roughly eleven to sixteen weeks from valuation to keys in a normal chain. You deal with me at every stage; there is no office to be passed around.
An hour in the house, then a written range with the three comparables I used and the reason I would price inside or above them.
Photography booked for the right light, floor plan measured, title and lease documents gathered before launch rather than after an offer.
Ten days of concentrated viewings. Clustered appointments create honest competition and spare you a month of evening tidying.
Every offer comes to you with proof of funds, chain position and mortgage stage attached. Best price and best buyer are not always the same envelope.
Weekly written updates to both solicitors and to you, including the weeks when nothing moves — which is most of them.
Meter readings, key handover, and a final walk-through so the buyer receives the house in the state they agreed to buy.
A house sells on the second viewing. The first one only decides whether there is a second.
Before you list
Sequence, not speed. The sellers who do best spend a fortnight on paperwork before a single photograph is taken. A missing building-regulation certificate found in week two of a sale costs far more than the same certificate chased in week minus two — usually a price reduction, occasionally the buyer.
Price inside a band, not on a round number. Search filters cluster at the hundreds and the fifties. Listing at £605,000 hides a house from everyone capped at £600,000, and the extra five thousand is rarely what you lose — it is the four viewings you never hear about.
Fix the cheap signals. A sticking front door, a cracked bathroom seal and a dim hallway bulb all read as neglect to a buyer who cannot see your roof. None of them cost much. Avoid the expensive pre-sale projects: new kitchens almost never return their cost at this end of the market.
Questions I am asked weekly
Book a viewing or a valuation
One form for both sides of the market. I reply to every enquiry myself, usually the same working day, and I will tell you if what you are looking for is not on my list.