Buying a house without a buying agent

What does a buying agent actually do?

It helps to split the role into five tasks. That way you see immediately which ones you can do yourself and which you have to place elsewhere:

1. Searching and selecting. Access to what is on the market and a filter for what is worth the trouble. With today's portals this is the easiest part to do yourself.
2. Valuation. What is this property realistically worth, given comparable sales in the area? You can substantiate this yourself with public transaction data and a valuation.
3. Document analysis. VvE documents, the long-term maintenance plan, the deed of division, the survey, the seller's questionnaire, the energy label, land registry data. This is the most time-consuming part and where the biggest risks sit.
4. Bidding strategy and negotiation. Amount, timing, conditions, and the conversation with the selling agent.
5. Contract and deadlines. Checking the purchase agreement, formulating conditional clauses and keeping an eye on dates.

The tasks you really must not skip

In practice, buying on your own rarely goes wrong on the negotiation. It goes wrong on two points:

• You do not read the documents thoroughly. A leak that appears three times in the VvE minutes, an eight-year-old maintenance plan, a reserve fund that does not cover the announced maintenance, those are five-figure amounts sitting right there in the paperwork.
• Your conditions are too vague or missing. A financing condition set too low, or a survey condition without a concrete limit, is no protection at all.

Your own approach, step by step

1. Set your budget firmly: together with a mortgage adviser, including buyer's costs and a buffer for maintenance.
2. Request all documents before you bid. For an apartment: minutes (3 years), annual accounts, budget, maintenance plan, deed of division and regulations. For any property: the seller's questionnaire, the list of fixtures and fittings, the energy label, and any existing survey reports.
3. Read them with purpose. Search for the recurring terms (reserve fund, leak, foundation, arrears, one-off levy) instead of reading everything front to back.
4. Substantiate your offer. Comparable sales plus the items you pulled out of the documents. A substantiated offer convinces better than a round number.
5. Word your conditions concretely: amount, date, and for a survey a threshold amount.
6. Have the purchase agreement checked by your notary or a purchase lawyer. This is an individual service and considerably cheaper than a full buying agent.

When is an agent worth it after all?

For a property with a complex legal situation (a ground lease with an expiring term, a VvE in conflict, an unpermitted extension, a listed building), in an overheated local market where strategy makes the difference, or simply when you do not have the time. There is a middle ground too: many agents offer individual services, for example only the negotiation or only the contract check.