House buying process in UK

• Hi Guys,
  I'm heading home for December and want to buy a house while I'm there (retirement investment, get back on the housing ladder).
  
  Can anyone give me advice on how to deal with real estate agents in the UK, and the process over there? Here in the US, I could email a realtor and say "I have one week to find a house for 150k, here's what I'm looking for, help me find the right house", and they'd do exactly that. The prospect of making commission on a pretty-much guaranteed sale would motivate them.
  
  Could I do the same thing in the UK, and would it work? Could I just find a real estate company in the Chester area and set up a week of looking at houses? I get the impression that UK realtors can be pretty useless, and even downright unscrupulous when it comes to negotiations. I also seem to remember from my only house-buying experience in the UK (many years ago) that it is the SELLER'S agent who shows a house - so I'd need to contact lots of different agents to look at different houses. Am I remembering correctly?
  
  Thanks, Steve

  12 Jun 2007, 06:48 Steve

Replies

• many estate agents now

  We bought our first house 5 years ago and started off by ringing up about 5 different estate agents and asking them to send out info on houses in the area we were looking for a within our price range. We then had to set up viewings to fit around the owners and our work commitments, which did prove difficult at times! There are so many estate agents now that I wouldn't advise just using one in particular.
  
  Check out the website Rightmove. It is a good website to start with though as it lists adverts from many different agents, so that could be a good place to start.
  Cheers

  Tori 12 Jun 2007, 06:54 - Report

• Buyers Agents

  You are right in thinking that estate agents are pretty useless. I think a week is cutting it very thin and you may find real difficulty infinding anything that is suitable.
  
  You should contact a variety of property finders in the UK such as Stacks or Khalil and Kane.
  
  Good Luck
  
  

  Matt 03 Jul 2007, 02:05 - Report

• Agents for property purchase

  When we decided to buy our house around a year ago we used the site www.convex.net, these agents were able to show us many houses in our area within our price range. This made things a lot easier for us. The agents handled the entire process for us efficiently and quickly.You can try them out too. All the best

  Sandy 28 Apr 2008, 11:14 - Report

• Home information pack

  If you want to sell your house with estate agent or without estate agent, you require home information pack. Get the full detail information on www.1stforhips.com. All the best to sell the house faster.

  home information pack, hip pack, estate agent 25 Jul 2008, 11:10 - Report

• MARY

  VENDO CASA NUEVA PARA VIVIR EN ANDALUCIA Y MADRID, SUPER ECONOMICAS PONGASE EN CONTACTO
  
  I BANDAGE NEW HOUSE TO LIVE IN ANDALUSIA AND MADRID, SUPER ECONOMIC be contacted
  
  
  [email removed]

  mcabello_mendez@hotmail.com 02 Sep 2008, 01:19 - Report