My first boss in property interviewed me with a cigarette burning in the ashtray on his desk.

I got that job in 2006 by refusing to take no for an answer. On day one I was given a gold Vauxhall Astra and a Rolodex of buyers nobody was calling, because in this industry the money comes from the seller. So I called them. One of them was a man who needed a garden big enough to play the drums in, and nobody had rung him back because nobody thought he was serious. I showed him one house twice in a day and he bought it for cash within ten days. I’ve never forgotten that the buyers nobody calls are often the best buyers in the room.

Twelve years on the other side

I spent twelve years as a selling agent, including five running an office in Earl’s Court, and I was good at it. I worked through the 2008 crash when almost everyone else had left, setting up empty desks each morning so the office looked busy and doing the jobs of the people who used to sit at them. I was the one deciding who got the first phone call. And I watched intelligent, serious, capable people get quietly moved to the back of the queue, not because anyone was being unkind, but because the whole system is built around the seller. That never sat right with me.

“The buyers nobody calls are often the best buyers in the room.”

Shepherd’s Bush, 2014

For years I helped other people buy and owned nothing myself. I wasn’t priced out, I was just so caught up in everyone else’s moves that I never made my own. What changed it was half an hour with a mortgage adviser and real numbers on a page. Suddenly it wasn’t a pipe dream, it was a plan. I saved the deposit in a year and fixed my solicitor and surveyor before I viewed a single flat.

The first flat I offered on stalled two weeks in, and I knew that kind of slowness wasn’t normal, so I let it go. That same weekend I saw a building I’d watched go up from my window. The flat I wanted wasn’t even on the price list. I put a deposit down that day and exchanged in three weeks.

It was 2014, the so called peak. Everyone told me I was mad. Prime central London has fallen around a quarter since then, and my flat has gone up significantly. I didn’t time the market. I knew exactly what I was buying and why.

I bought it too big for me, on purpose, because I was buying for a life I hadn’t met yet. Years later she arrived. It’s still the only way I know how to do property, around the life.

Art of Buying London®

In 2018 I crossed the table and started Art of Buying London, so the person actually spending the money finally had someone on their side. I’m not the agent selling it to you, so you get an independent view from someone who isn’t invested in you saying yes.

I keep it small on purpose. I take on no more than five full buying service clients at a time, and never two with matching criteria. A bigger firm can’t say that.