The Missing Agent
There is a version of property sourcing that feels like the holy grail.
No estate agent in the middle. No competing offers filtering through a third party. Just you, the seller, and a clean path to completion.
Direct to vendor deals carry a certain appeal, and rightly so. When they work, they work beautifully. But early in my sourcing career, I learned something that nobody had thought to tell me.
When there is no estate agent in the deal, somebody still has to do their job.
And if you do not realise that somebody is you, the whole thing can unravel very quietly, very slowly, and at considerable cost to everyone involved.
What Estate Agents Actually Do
It is easy to think of a high street estate agent purely as a middleman. Someone who lists the property, conducts viewings, and takes a percentage for their trouble.
But that is only part of what they do.
Behind the scenes, a good estate agent guides the seller through the entire process. They prompt them to arrange an EPC. They explain which forms need completing before the conveyancer can get started. They chase documents, flag gaps, and keep everything moving in the right order. They are, in effect, a project manager for the seller's side of the transaction.
Most sellers have no idea how much of this is being handled on their behalf. Why would they? It just happens.
Until it does not.
Our First Direct to Vendor Deal
One of our earliest direct to seller deals looked straightforward on the surface. The seller was experienced, having sold several properties over the years, and came across as confident and capable. We had no reason to think the process would be anything other than smooth.
What we had not considered was that every previous sale had been handled through an estate agent. The seller had turned up, signed what they were asked to sign, and moved on. The mechanics of what happened in between had never been their concern.
They were not difficult to work with. They were simply waiting for someone to tell them what to do next.
And we had no process for that.
No checklist for what the seller needed to have in place. No prompt to ask about the EPC. No guidance ready for the TA forms that needed completing before anything could be sent to the conveyancer.
The result was a transaction that slowed to a crawl. Documents were missing. The conveyancer was chasing. The relationship with the legal team, which should have been straightforward, became strained because we had not fulfilled our role in the chain.
We had focused entirely on finding the deal and had given almost no thought to delivering it.
The Role Nobody Warned Us About
That experience changed how we approach every direct to vendor deal we have worked on since.
When there is no estate agent involved, you become the missing agent. Not in terms of valuing the property or conducting viewings, but in terms of holding the seller's hand through a process they almost certainly do not understand as well as they think they do.
That means knowing, in advance, exactly what the seller needs to have in place before the deal can progress. It means asking the right questions early, rather than discovering the gaps when a conveyancer comes back with a list of missing documents three weeks in.
At a minimum, you need a clear process that covers the following. Does the seller have a valid EPC in place? Have the relevant property information forms been explained and completed? Are there any issues with the title that need addressing before exchange? Does the seller have a solicitor instructed, and do they understand what will be asked of them?
None of this is complicated. But it has to be in place before you need it, not after things have started to go wrong.
Build the Process Before You Need It
The sourcing part of the job gets a lot of attention. Finding the deal, negotiating the price, presenting to the investor. That is what most training covers and what most sourcers focus on.
But a deal that falls apart at the conveyancing stage because the seller did not know what documents were needed is just as costly as never finding the deal in the first place.
You do not get paid for nearly completing. You get paid for completing.
If you are working direct to vendor and you do not have a process that covers the seller's side of the transaction, build one now. Before the next deal. Before the next gap appears.
Because the missing agent in that deal will always be you. The only question is whether you are ready for it.
