Private Property Search is an independent consultancy owned by Strutt & Parker. Its aim? To find your dream home. We talked with Jessica Simpson, who runs the country team,to find out how they find your perfect home.

Q: So how do you find clients’ perfect homes?

We run a bespoke service and approach finding our clients’ dream home in three ways - search, advise and buy.

Clients contact us when they don’t feel they’re getting access to the right kinds of property on the open market. We give them access to a variety of properties which we identify through our contacts locally and within the industry. Our agents live and operate in their areas which means that they hear about properties before anyone else.

The client gives us a brief on what they’re looking for in terms of location, property type, schooling, budget and at what point in the search they’re at. We add to that any information about current market trends. We also try and go and see clients in their own homes so we can get a sense of what style works for them.

Q: Can’t they just go online?

One of the great things about our service is we often find properties before they come to market, thanks to our exceptional network of contacts.  Around 45% of what we find for our clients isn’t  actually on the open market.

Because of this, we even have clients come to us with a specific house they want to buy. We can make it happen through a variety of routes, but we don’t simply go and knock on the door. What we might do is find someone who knows the owners so we can get an introduction.

This happens quite a lot. We spend a lot of time doing hands-on research in small towns, talking to locals and finding out what the gossip is. We’ll do everything we can to get advance notice on a property.

Q: How do you help clients buy a home?

Once we’ve identified the right property, we can advise clients on what price to pay and, thanks to our unrivalled market knowledge, give them purchasing strategies, help with negotiations and give thoughtful and hard-hitting advice about the purchase.

We have extensive knowledge about sellers and why they are selling, which is very useful when it comes to bidding as we’ll know how best to approach the negotiations.  In over 80% of price negotiations we manage to get the cost below the guide or suggested price.

Our clients are paying for a hard negotiation not just on price but also on terms. This could include making sure certain fixtures and fittings are included, or that the timings work for everyone .  Our aim is to solve any potential problems before they happen.

We help our clients get preferred bidder status by packaging up their interests and highlighting not just how much they are willing to pay, but also factors like how quickly they can move and are their funds in place.  It also takes a lot of the pressure off our clients, so they can relax and enjoy the process of buying their dream home.

With farms and estates, we also offer a full due diligence service as well as advice on how best to run the farm and make the most of the assets.  

We also work closely with all your advisors such as your solicitor and accountant to ensure all your interests are being looked after, from whether the 4% mixed use  SDLT rate applies to apportioning value for various ownership structuring.

We don’t just leave them once the sale has gone through. We can put clients in contact with the best schools’ admissions secretary or introduce them to people in the area we might have bought for in the past as well as our little black book which is full of architects, designers, interior designs, planners removal men

For people moving from abroad, we’ll make sure the house is totally ready when they arrive, from managing refurbishments to setting up payments for the bills.

Q: What are people looking for?

A lot of our clients are buying a second home, so really good quality country houses sell very well. But they have to be in tip top order and well located.

At the moment, our buyers are very discerning and not prepared to compromise on what they want. This is driven by their confidence - it’s a buyer’s market, despite the fact there are fewer homes coming on the market, there is still a disparity on pricing.