The Secret Agent: Do independent agents possess greater commercial skills

August was a very quiet month for me. The phone barely rang as my clientele decamped to Cornwall for a month. Looking for something to do, I set about ringing a number of buying agents in London to help me with a project I have been working on for a client.

In my neck of the woods, the most prominent buying agent is a pseudo-member of the sales team of two locally based national agents. He gets the nod 2 - 4 weeks in advance of a property going on the market and converts enough of these in a year to make a living. The prospect of having to make small talk with ten agents of a similar mould filled me with dread.

Part of the project I am working on is to establish a team of property advisors to a wealthy client and as part of this I need to include a panel of sales agents. Therefore, I rang ten buying agents to ask whom they would use in their respective areas if they were selling a house.

All ten responded that they would use a local independent agent. Reasons offered for their opinion varied to some degree, but the common theme was that independent agents had a greater depth of commercial skills not seen in a large corporate agent.

I was surprised that the answer to this question was unanimous, and the strength of opinion, although it has to be said that I agree with them. This brings me neatly on to answering the question raised by Roderick Thomas as to the reason why I am not a fan of Agents' Mutual.

The main issue I have is that it took nearly a decade for the people of AM to identify the risk presented by Rightmove to their business and they have not demonstrated any commercial capability to mitigate this risk. As the buying agents identified, the national agents are lacking commercial skills and this is evident throughout their business plan.

Given the Chairman of one of the backers expresses a similar personal view of the shortcomings, I don't think the foundations are as strong as they ought to be and therefore have declared that I am OUT.

*The Secret Agent has been in property for almost 20 years and trained as a Chartered Surveyor. He enjoys nothing more than being involved in property and has invested in, renovated, developed and sold plenty of property for both himself and clients.

(In between selling property this agent loves nothing more than being involved in rugby and whilst slower and heavier, continues to be as involved as possible.)