Success! We have somewhere to live, move in early May!
In the end Savills came good, again (we used them for the place in Windsor) with a nice house in Richmond
It has been a shockingly painful experience dealing with these estate agents, worse than I can ever remember, in summary:
Foxtons, lots of rogue younger sales reps who couldn't give a jot about you or what you want and will speak down to you like an idiot
Dexters, actually did listen to what you want, did a lot of follow up with places that were on our spec, although their automated email system is terrible after I specced Richmond/St Margarets I was being emailed places in Hammersmith and Kensington and I would get the same property emailed 6-7 times a day
Chancellors, have to say worse than Foxtons, their approach to the rental market is to take people to see the property, then you say you will take it, they say ok and then proceed to tell you for two days all is ok, only then to find out you havent got it after 'all the bids were put to the landlord and he chose someone else' - I never realised the rental market worked like ebay...
Chase Buchanan, seemed nice and helpful but then did a lot of faffing with properties coming in that were perfect for us and them forgetting to tell us
All in all a really painful experience and one not keen to repeat anytime soon - generally they are staffed by wet behind the ears sales reps who think because they are renting out a half million pound property that makes them somewhat above the people renting it - I have never experienced such general poor levels of customer service be it in a pizza restaurant or when buying a car off a forecourt. They really are in a class of their own at the bottom of the scale there - to the point when you get a good one who actually listens to you its like Christmas come early.
Anyways...onwards and upwards.