This time last year I was renting an open-plan flat high up in a mustard-coloured tower next to Tate Modern and thinking of writing something AbsoLoftly Fabulous about the renting life, with its bank of 24-hour porters and fishbowl windows. After my decades in Wandsworth's Nappy Valley, it was more like the glamour of Sex and the City (without the racy bits).

The stint of renting was an experiment - a bridge between one life and another. We had just packed up and struggled to sell the family home - moving home is stressful - up there with divorce, bereavement and losing your job. Little did I know that my hunt for a more permanent home would entail such stress that I would eventually need professional help, in the form of a search agent.

From the start, it was dispiriting dealing with estate agents. They were too busy to talk; phone calls were not returned. What made it particularly galling was the shift from being pestered daily when my husband and I were selling the family home to being sneered at for having only half-a-million at my disposal as a prospective buyer.

I made forays into the area where we had lived before our separation to see what I could afford. I was looking for two bedrooms and perhaps some sort of outdoor space. One low point was looking at a lower-ground flat: it had a landscaped garden and a light, open-plan living-dining space. However, the street-level master bedroom was opposite a busy school entrance, and the other bedroom at the back looked out on to a brick wall. Like all the other flats I looked at, the entrance hall was dingy, with a stained carpet and a heap of discarded mail.

This vision of reduced circumstances in an area steeped in memories persuaded me to go for something completely different, hence the inner-city loft. Frustrated by unhelpful estate agents I resorted to more unorthodox means. One day, I saw men working on the balcony of a council flat with views of St Paul's Cathedral and wangled my way inside - but it was too small and had been sold anyway.

Across the river, Clerkenwell seemed appealing, with its pretty squares and historic churches - but the prices were even higher. At one point, I considered buying a new-build in the area. The developer was a woman - rather unusually - and we met on site to look at plans, with an architect friend who asked questions such as about the height of ceilings, for instance, which are often low in new developments. My flat would have had a view of an old oak tree and, beyond it, a beautiful church and gardens but it was surrounded by three big roads. What made me particularly anxious was the unfamiliar idea of buying something which I hadn't seen - and that at £630,000 I would have been in a permanent state about the mortgage.

As the months went by, I cast my net more widely. Nearly everything in my price range was grim in some way. In Bloomsbury, some agents I spoke to made it clear that it was hardly worth their while to register me.

There was one fabulous flat - the top two floors of a building in Kennington. The owner had transformed the roof into a wonderful decked garden. The flat was in one of those little pockets of pretty streets in Kennington that are surrounded by huge neglected council estates. When I called the local police station to ask about the area, the friendly copper said: “Let's put it this way, I wouldn't buy there if you paid me, and I'd give your son five months at the outside before he got mugged.” That settled that.

My mortgage broker joined in the search and lobbed internet details my way every day. On one of these phonecalls, the agent suggested that he could moonlight as a search agent for me - meaning that he would tip me off about a property and I would pay him a finders' fee. I'm still not quite sure whether this meant that he would get double-dibs.

This was when I decided that what I needed was a bona fide search agent - the drawback being the extra expense of their fees. The plan was to set up three search agents covering different territories and provide them with my list of requirements. But the moment Lucy Russell from Quintessentially Estates walked in, my problems were over. Even in the course of that initial meeting, she seemed genuine, with-it and determined to come up with the goods.

Unlike her competitors, Lucy kept in touch and within a couple of weeks had three properties for me that we whittled down to two. One was back in my old neighbourhood: it had a huge living room, vast rooms in the basement but too dark for my taste.

The flat I ended up buying was a real find, and it took Lucy to find it. It ticked all the boxes and more: exceptionally light, communal gardens at the back, a lovely park at the front, terrific shops and restaurants near by, two Tube stations within a five-minute walk, and millionaire views of Regents Canal... all for £550,000.

But Lucy's job did not stop there. She hold my hand through the negotiations, soothing and firm in turn, and then was a real ally in round two - how a hapless hack became an interior decorator.

FACT FILE:

The main advantages of using a buying agent are the savings in time and money - they can often get you a deal, too - and access to properties not available on the open market.

Costs vary but there is usually a registration fee (between £500 and £2,500) and then a percentage of the purchase price (usually between 1 per cent and 3 per cent).

Buying agents will go to any lengths to find their client the perfect home - meeting requests for helipads, music studios, dog showers or even built-in tunnels.

CONTACTS:

Quintessentially Estates

Property Vision

Stacks Property Search and Acquisition

Garrington Home Finders

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