?? 104 Teigmouth Road sale (2003)

Looking through my Year 2003 diary, I came across detailed notes of this sale, the fortuitous nature is similar to how the transaction itself evolved.

2003 was a very eventful year in my career but that will be a tale for another day.

As an independent fledgling estate agent based in a back street of pre-gentrified London Kings Cross, we had to reach out to survive and attract business either by knocking on doors, cold calling from property magazine like ‘Loot’ or leaflet dropping through letter boxes of homes.?

One of such leaflet had a text which read “we have overseas buyers looking to buy your property” , which educed a phone call from a resident in Islington London N1, in an office of just 3-4 of us with the phone seldom ringing, there was always a dash or a competition to pick the phone.?

An apologetic voice on the other side acknowledged receipt of the leaflet and while not having a property to sell himself, enquired if we would consider selling a property in Willesden NW2, he pointed out that the “overseas” angle in the leaflet was what evoked the phone call and his in - law 'Tom' was struggling to sell his home. Of course requiring any sort of brief and with a good knowledge of the NW2 area, having had my Real Estate tutelage and early working days in West Hampstead, I got the number for ‘Tom’, property address and went on to meet him.

104 Teignmouth Road was actually located in the Mapesbury conservation area, a tree lined, wider than usual Road and boasts mainly semi and detached period houses. The house in question is a substantial sized, red brick, period, semi detach House with drive for 2/3 cars and beautifully maintained, mature garden. It retained many of its period features like fireplace and tiles.

‘Tom’ was a man in his mid forties, the house was clean, lawns tendered, family pictures on the wall. The toys and atmosphere indicated a happy family. ‘Tom’ confirmed their position, the house although a good size has become too small for the family and they have found a new home, agreed with the sellers but are struggling to sell theirs. Outside the house were ‘for sale’ boards of probably two of the most prominent local estate agents Cameron Stiff & Co and Dutch & Dutch, obviously they have been trying to sell the property without joy. ‘Tom’ was desperate to sell and get his family the new property, he offered an incentive of ￡2,000 direct to the negotiator that close the deal outside of the agreed sale commission of 2.5%, this was getting better.

He signed our terms and condition and enquired when we would be putting our sales board outside the building, we had few for sale boards and had run out at that point so I responded, ‘we don’t put up for sale boards, we put up sold boards’. He liked the answer as it gave him hope.

You would ask why a property this good, was on the market for so long? There was a mild recession on the back of the 9/11/2001 New York City terrorist attack that shook the world financial market, this impacted the London property negatively, and affected the number of sales.

Now, getting a ￡Million instruction in 2003 was a big deal, but how do we go about selling the house, very few people had access to the internet, property sale was localised, with buyers driving around the area they desire and looking out for ‘For sale’ boards, speaking to local agents or picking local papers. We were one of the few advertising online at www.findaproperty.com and Hot property magazine a weekly property magazine that served London, there were overseas buyers. However they are usually looking for properties in the 250 -500k bracket.

Fortune favours the brave, we advertised Teignmouth Road in Hot Property magazine, bear in mind that every advert is postcode paged, hence Daniel Fords slot would be listed above or below the other agents listing the same property on the same page. The prospective buyer had the option to choose or call from any of the listers based on the narration, and visual representation of the property. I can’t remember if we paid extra to add the picture but a young Russian lady came into the office holding a copy of the magazine with Teignmouth Road highlighted in green, ‘I want to buy this property’ she said, she was about 19 Years old. Remember this was 2003 and the property is priced at a GBP1m, according to the Land registry average house price in London was ￡200,000 in 2003. It was unusual to say the least.

I had a feeling something good was brewing here, I conducted the viewing and she absolutely loved the property and was sure her dad a businessman would like her choice. If you think this is a done deal wait for it, the vendor whispered to me during the house tour, ‘we now have an offer from one of the other agents’, they were considering accepting an offer for 960k.

The young lady, on the other hand was eager to impress her dad by striking a hard bargain, I had to inform her there was an offer from another agent and she would have to put in the full asking price to stand a chance of buying the property. Usually, an increment of 2-5k would sway the vendor, but in this instance, ‘Tom’ was not too impressed by a young lady viewing the property on her own, with unverified claim of being a cash buyer. I recall him asking me ‘where is the money, in the bank or under the mattress’, sarcastically. He deemed her a parvenu.?

The buyer also didn’t have a solicitor, so I recommended M & B law firm on Finchley Road.?

She reluctantly put in an offer of 980k which tempted the vendor, however he was unconvinced the young buyer would be able to see the transaction through, so he asked for time to think about the offer. This was about the 15th-16th of December, I was due to travel abroad, as I was best man at my College friends wedding, we need to tie this to exchange and time was running out. The coming week would be Christmas and everything shuts down, practically.?

The buyer met with the Solicitor and wasn’t too impressed as he was the only one in a massive office (Christmas season), she called after their meeting,?‘I don’t think I will remit money to this Solicitor firm, I will use them but wouldn’t transfer the funds to them’. ‘I would pay the vendors solicitors directly. Usually, the buyer’s funds go through their solicitors to the vendors solicitors in property transactions, but I was faced with a situation where the vendor did not trust the buyer, the buyer equally did not trust her solicitor.

Also, the principal solicitor of the firm that was out of the office during the client meeting was unhappy her subordinate got the brief.?

Time was ticking, my biggest singular property sale to date, that would bring in much needed fees is beckoning but ego, fear and distrust is about to truncate everything.

I got to the airport early, on the 20th of December, to board a British Airways flight for the wedding which I had pledged to honour six months earlier, got my boarding in anticipation of the 11am flight, I called the vendor at the dot of 9am, asking ‘have you made up your mind on the offer?’ I was shocked and disappointed to hear that he was still reluctant to accept the offer, and would rather go with the lower offer backed with a mortgage offer, rather than a cash offer that was significantly higher, exchange immediately, but not cast in stone.?

In 2003, the battery life of mobile phones was about 2-3 hours, and I ended up using 2 batteries giving a talk of my life to convince the vendor to accept my introduced buyer.?

Thankfully, due to the Christmas rush, my British Airways flight was overbooked, and the airline requested for volunteers from the checked in passengers to stay back a day, in exchange for a ￡500 inconvenience voucher, which I gladly took up, so I can deal with my transaction. The airline put me in a hotel close to the airport.

The full day I had to push it through, outside the office environment, went a long way to get the deal to exchange and thankfully the transaction completed without further drama, in February 2004 at ￡985,000. ‘Tom’ was chased to honour his ￡2,000 negotiators bonus, which he later sent ￡1,000 cheque to cover. I know you would be wondering, Yes, we put up a board after the sale ‘Sold by’ Daniel Ford & Co proudly.

Yemi Edun 2022