Home for sale – Totteridge Lane, Totteridge – £3,250,000 – Full Details
Expert Approach to Finding Your Next Home
By Nick Staton – Owner of Statons Estate Agents
(As seen in one of North London’s leading print newspapers)
Having been in this wonderful industry for over 30 years, I’ve had the privilege of witnessing first-hand how property search habits have evolved, especially with the rise of digital platforms.
While online search tools have made it easier than ever to browse available homes, they’ve also introduced a new challenge: the danger of being too specific.
Many people, for example, search strictly for properties with three bedrooms – and in doing so, they may miss out on fantastic homes that technically have two bedrooms, plus a study or an extra reception room that could easily serve as a third bedroom. This is particularly common with apartments, where layouts can vary greatly.
A property with two bedrooms and a spacious reception room might suit your needs just as well as one listed with a ‘true’ three-bed.
Another common issue is postcode filtering. Buyers often limit their search to a single postcode, not realising they could miss a dream home just a few hundred yards away – literally.
Take Hadley Wood in north London, for example: one side of Beech Hill is in EN4, while just a short distance down the same road, it changes to EN5. We currently have homes for sale in both. There are many areas where this takes place, many other agents in their areas have similar issues. It’s easy to miss your perfect home if your search is too narrow.
This also applies to areas like Totteridge and Hadley, where names can be similar and confusing – Totteridge Lane, Totteridge Common, Totteridge Green; Hadley Green, Hadley Highstone, Hadley Common. A rigid search that doesn’t account for these subtle differences might exclude perfectly suitable properties.
All Property portals and estate agents’ websites give you the opportunity to loosen your search criteria. Instead of focusing strictly on a particular bedroom count or on one postcode, use broader search filters – try a radius of at least half a mile and consider properties with flexible room use.
Most importantly: talk to your estate agent. A good agent knows the area inside out and can match you with homes that you might not have considered based on rigid search filters alone.
And remember – terms like ‘flat’, ‘apartment’, or ‘lateral living’ can all mean the same thing, depending on who you’re speaking to.
It’s best to be open in your brief and let experienced agents interpret your requirements to find you the right property.
At Statons, this is what we do every day – helping buyers uncover the hidden gems that don’t always appear in a tick-box search.
Wishing you the best of luck with your search, and don’t hesitate to get in touch.
In more challenging market conditions, Statons continue to utilise both digital and more traditional print media to put buyers and sellers together. The above article and the advert below, were recently published in one of our local north London print publications. Statons enjoys supporting our local community’s print publications as well as helping buyers navigate the sometimes tricky process of property search.
