Property searcher Rebecca Regis on finding her dream home

A few weeks ago, when property finder Rebecca Regis was helping her mum have a clear out, she stumbled across an old article from the East Anglian Daily Times.

“Rare sale of 500-year old farm surrounded by meadowlands,” the headline read. She was about to “bin it”, she says, but luckily she realised the significance: it was the house she and her husband had bought the same year it was published. 

“I don’t think I ever saw that article,” she says. “We had tried to buy the house the year before because my father had always known it. 

“It was derelict and sits in the middle of its own land [and] it was one of those houses that everyone knew.”

Rebecca recently found an article publicising the sale of Moat Farm in 1999, the same year that she and her then-boyfriend bought it (Image: Rebecca Regis)

The house, which is Grade II listed and dates back to the 16th century, hadn’t been lived in for 60 years. 

Bricks had been stolen out of the floors and the old coppers taken out of the kitchen. It had definitely seen better days, but Rebecca was undeterred.

“It was a very romantic notion,” she says. “I said to my husband, then-boyfriend, ‘look at this house – this is the house I’d love to live in one day.’ I think it was snowing, it had no driveway, it was just this house in the middle of its fields and it’s sort of semi-moated.”

At the time, the couple weren’t even looking for a new home, let alone in Suffolk.  Despite Rebecca being born and bred in the county, having attended Thomas Mills in Framlingham and a sixth form in Norwich, their lives were in London.

“He said ‘God, I love it – shall we try and track down the owner and see if they would ever sell it?’ I think a lot of people over the years had tried to approach him,” Rebecca explains. “It think it was on [the] buildings at risk [register] and he had to sell it in the end. He never lived there.

“It went public, on with Strutt & Parker, and we went to sealed bids. There were 27 sealed bids for it, in the end, for all the various lots. We wanted to keep the whole thing, and I think he was keen for us to buy it because it was going to be a family home.”

Rebecca still has the original photographs of what the property looked like when she bought it (Image: Rebecca Regis)

At the time, the property had no driveway, no electricity and no plumbing, Rebecca says, so they tried to do a lot of the work from their terrace in London.

While the planning permission was going through for what would eventually become a five-bedroom home, the couple was advised by a friend to plant trees around the site.

“There weren’t that many established trees, and I think we’ve planted thousands since we moved here. We put trees up the drive, we’ve planted three woods – we’ve done a lot.”

The renovations took around a year to complete, Rebecca says, but like many period buildings, the work is ongoing and it has had to fit around family life.

“We’ve had all three children here, brought them up and had a lot of fun,” she says. “Big parties. Big 21sts, big 18ths – it’s been a really happy house. We’ve had our horses, the children have competed and we’ve learned a lot along the way.

“We were young and energetic and it was really exciting. It has taken I think 10 years to do everything we wanted to do, and then you start replacing windows or need to redo some… It’s been 23 years now. These old houses are ongoing projects.”

What one of the reception rooms looked like before the family started renovating it (Image: Rebecca Regis)

Nowadays, Rebecca still appreciates how rare a find it was – “it is a forever home and we were lucky to have got it in our 30s,” she says – and perhaps this is even more acute now that she spends her day job helping others to land their dream home. 

After moving to Suffolk, she set up her own business, Rebecca Regis Property Search, helping buyers find their dream homes in Suffolk, north Essex and Norfolk. 

Previously she had worked as a director for Hamptons International’s London office, and then as a consultant, so knew her stuff.

But until recently, it had always been something she had to fit around other things.
During Covid, she revamped her website and gave the business more of her focus.

Despite apprehension that the market might slow down, she says she has been “inundated” with enquiries since the beginning of the year – proof, she says, that although buyers are more cautious and less likely to make an offer ‘in the moment’, there is still an appetite to buy a home in the area.

“There are buyers out there – they’re just a little bit more considered,” she says.

What that same reception space looks like now (Image: Rebecca Regis)

Covid has fundamentally changed how people work and live – they’re not just relocating for a tiny bolthole cottage, she says, but are buying “proper houses” where they can spend longer stretches of time.

“Often, if it’s not their forever home, it’s the intention that it will be,” she says, and most of those she works for are committed to making their move permanent – whether that’s now or in the future.

“There are still people wanting to [move] – we just need more good houses, actually.”

Anyone can look on Rightmove, Rebecca says, but the service she offers is very different. It’s more personalised, more thorough and involves her taking on only a handful of clients at a time.

“I don’t deal in volume,” she says, “and I don’t take on anybody with conflicting criteria. I have to be very sure that my clients are committed to buying because I will have to turn somebody away if they contact me with the same criteria.

“I’ve set myself some boundaries. These are people’s lives. They’re going to live in the same county as me, so it needs to be a good service. We all need to be happy.”

The property looks so different to when the couple bought it (Image: Rebecca Regis)

Rebecca says she has good relationships with local agents and knows the area well, which means she feels comfortable offering advice and guidance to clients about which home is right for them.

“It’s more than just finding the property – it’s hand holding,” she says. Much of her job is about meeting people, understanding them and helping them to feel courageous enough to make a purchase which will lead to the life they want.

“I always say it’s just having somebody who’s on their side throughout the whole process,” she says – and it doesn’t just stop with helping her clients find a house.

“I will be talking to them about architects, interior designers, people that do curtains, builders… I’m so much a part of their process. I’m there to create and help them with this whole kind of lifestyle [and] I want [them] to think it’s the best thing that has ever happened.”

This is partly because she has done it herself. To others, she recommends getting a “really good” architect on board – and not to scrimp. 

“You can’t cut corners,” she says. “We think it’s better to go without, really. We didn’t have a driveway for several years – I mean, not a proper drive, and we hadn’t landscaped. Everything was done in stages.

Rebecca says the barn was falling down when they bought it, but they've since turned it into guest accommodation and she now runs it as an Airbnb (Image: Rebecca Regis)

“The barn was falling down, and the first thing we did was make that safe and put a roof on it. 

“In 2008, we converted the barn [which dates back to the 15th century] and I do Airbnb – and it’s also just guest overflow.”

Over the years, Rebecca admits that she’s seen very few homes quite like hers. In fact, discovering the newspaper article recently made her realise just how fortunate they were.

“We were very lucky,” she says. “There’s no way we could have afforded that now. We got 150 acres with it.”

Nowadays, about 40 acres of the land has been turned to pasture and the rest is farmable – but it’s taken a lot of work to get there.

“I always tell my clients, ‘don’t be a slave to bricks and mortar’ and we are,” Rebecca admits. “We’re very emotionally connected, I can’t see us ever selling.

“I would feel really sad not to see my children here, maybe the girls married here. We’re very sentimental about the house.”

For more information, visit rebeccaregis.co.uk