The language of property buying has always varied by geography. In the United States, the professional who represents a buyer is known as a buyer’s agent – a designation so standard, so structurally embedded in how real estate works there, that many Americans arrive in London surprised to find the role isn’t automatically part of the transaction. In the UK, the equivalent figure goes by several names: search agent, buying agent, property finder. The title is less important than what lies behind it. Because while the ambition – to find the right home, at the right terms, entirely in the buyer’s interest – is shared on both sides of the Atlantic, the experience of working with one in each country is quite different. The market structures are different. The incentives are different. And, perhaps most significantly, the nature of the relationship is different.

Understanding those distinctions matters, particularly for buyers who have experience of both markets, or who are coming from the US to make London their home. 

A Question of Structure

To appreciate why a UK search agent operates as they do, it helps to understand what they are operating against.

In the United States, property transactions have long been conducted through a Multiple Listing Service – centralised, cooperative database through which selling agents share listings and buyers’ agents gain access. For decades, the seller paid a gross commission (typically five to six per cent) that was split between both sides, meaning buyer representation was, in effect, free at the point of use. The buyer’s agent was a standard part of the process: expected, compensated, and practically universal.

That structure shifted in 2024, when a landmark National Association of Realtors settlement changed the rules. Sellers are no longer automatically required to cover the buyer’s agent fee; buyers must now enter written agreements with their agents before viewings can take place, with compensation negotiated explicitly. It is, in many ways, a step towards something closer to the British model – where buyer representation has always been elective, always paid for by the buyer, and consequently always the preserve of those who understood its value and sought it out deliberately.

In the UK, the default position remains that estate agents are appointed by and paid by the seller. Their obligation is to achieve the best possible price for their client – the vendor. A buyer dealing with an estate agent directly has no professional advocate. They negotiate, in effect, without a counterparty.

This is not a criticism of estate agents, who serve their clients well. It is simply an observation about alignment. When you appoint a search agent in the UK, you are creating an alignment that the standard market structure does not provide by default.

The Shape of the Property Finding Service

The mechanics of how a UK search agent works are distinct from the US buyer’s agent in several important ways.

The US buyer’s agent typically enters the picture once a buyer has identified what they want and is actively looking. They are, in many cases, reactive: searching the MLS, scheduling showings, writing offers. The service is valuable, but it operates largely within a defined, accessible market: the listings database is largely shared, the process relatively standardised, the documentation familiar to all parties.

A UK search agent, particularly in the prime London market, works in a very different landscape. There is no MLS. The market is fragmented, relational, and in significant part invisible, particularly at the level of exceptional homes. Off-market transactions are not a niche specialism here; they are a central feature of how the finest properties change hands. At Sekforde, many of the homes we identify for clients have never appeared on Rightmove, never been listed with an estate agency, and would not have been found through conventional search. Access to these opportunities depends entirely on the depth of relationships built over years: with agents, with developers, with solicitors, with the quiet networks through which London’s best properties quietly move.

This is why engagement with a UK search agent tends to start earlier and run deeper than the typical US buyer’s agent relationship. From the initial briefing conversation, we are not simply documenting a wish list. We are building an understanding of how a client actually lives – what matters to them morning and evening, what they have tried before and why it fell short, what they have not yet articulated but instinctively know. The brief becomes the foundation for a search that is genuinely bespoke.

Fees, Incentives, and What They Mean

In the US, buyer’s agent compensation (until recently) was a commission drawn from the seller’s proceeds, creating a structural ambiguity: whose interest did the buyer’s agent truly serve? The post-NAR settlement landscape is evolving, but the question of incentives remains live.

In the UK, the fee structure for search agents is transparent by design. A search agent is retained by, and paid by, the buyer – typically through a combination of an upfront retainer and a success fee calculated as a percentage of the purchase price. This means the agent’s interest is precisely aligned with the client’s: to find the right property and secure it at the best possible terms, not simply to transact quickly. There is no pressure from a split commission, no incentive to steer a client towards one property over another.

The retainer element, which might initially seem unusual to buyers accustomed to the US model, is meaningful in a different way. It signals mutual commitment. The client is serious; the agent can commit fully. At the level of the prime London market, where the most desirable homes demand swift, confident action, that seriousness matters.

UK property finders are built on relationships 

Perhaps the most meaningful difference is not structural but human.

In the US, the buyer’s agent relationship can be efficient and professional without being particularly close. The market moves quickly, the process is codified, and many buyers work with an agent they have met once or twice before exchanging contracts. The transactional emphasis is high.

In the UK, particularly at the level of a boutique search agency working in prime London, the relationship is necessarily closer. The negotiation process is more nuanced, the legal framework more complex, and the path from initial brief to completed purchase is rarely linear. A client and their search agent will spend real time together, refine the brief through experience, and often look back at the process as a genuine collaboration.

This is not incidental to the work. It is the work. Knowing what someone is really looking for, as opposed to what they said they were looking for at the first meeting, is something that emerges through relationship, not transaction.

For Buyers Who Know Both Markets

For those who have bought property in the United States and are now approaching the London market, there is sometimes a tendency to expect the same broad outlines of experience: an agent who searches the listings, books viewings, and manages the paperwork. What they find, if they work with the right search agent, is something more involved and more considered, and ultimately more valuable.

The London prime market rewards preparation, patience, and genuine insider knowledge. It is not a market where the best outcomes come from moving quickly through a database. It is a market where knowing which conversation to have, with whom, and at what moment, makes the difference between a good purchase and an exceptional one.

That is what a UK search agent does. Not instead of the things a US buyer’s agent does – but in addition to them, and through a different kind of relationship with the market entirely.