SoH. Featured in the Daily Mail
Our Co-founders Mathew & Stuart were recently featured in an article written by Antonia Hoyle for the Daily Mail discussing the London property market. Check out the feature below and read the full article here.
“But money certainly helps, as Mathew Walters, 35, and Stuart Aikman, 42, founders of boutique prime property agency Story of Home discovered recently, when a Swiss banker flew by private jet to see a £5 million, eight-bedroom Georgian property they were selling — with a swimming pool and off-street parking — before buying it and flying home the same afternoon.
With demand so strong, they recently brokered a bidding war on a house ‘over £6 million’ between international clients who had only seen the property via video link.
Stuart once agreed a £9.35 million offer from a Middle Eastern princess for a Georgian townhouse in Marylebone, before flying to Las Vegas for a wedding and handing over the sale to Mathew to complete.
‘When I landed, I asked how it was going,’ recalls Stuart. ‘He said contracts had been exchanged — but not with my buyer.’
In the space of Stuart’s fourteen-hour flight, Mathew took a call from a representative of a San Francisco technology entrepreneur: ‘He said, “I hear this building is under offer. My guy wants it.” He told me to ask the owner what he needed to do to acquire it,’ says Mathew.
‘The owner said if the second buyer paid the asking price of £10 million and exchanged contracts today, he’d swap buyers.’ And so he did.
While pools and off-street parking are de rigueur, some properties come with unexpected quirks, such as a fish tank built into the floor of one client’s bedroom and en-suite, ‘so the fish were swimming round the bath,’ says Stuart.
Even the most stylish designer finishes are subject to the whim of the buyer. ‘You’d be amazed how many people spend £10 million on an amazing property then rip it out completely,’ says Mathew.”