When Lara Macmillan left her home in Dublin to move to Edinburgh a few years ago she realised immediately that for both investors and home owners keen to make the most their properties, a more hands-on approach was needed.

This led to her forming Ambience Homes, which offers three different services.

Renovations and refurbishments:
As a developer herself, she became aware of the all-too-familiar problems of working with builders and trying to co-ordinate tradesmen – many of whom failed to live up to their promises.

As a result, she and her colleagues decided to put their knowledge and skills to work and develop their own renovation and refurbishment division for clients.

Property Investments:
For investors from oversees, the majority of whom are Irish, Lara knows only too well how different the Scottish house-buying systems are between the two countries.

No one wants the worry of not knowing the lie of the land and not knowing where to start. For instance, how do you source the actual property, how does the legal system work, and how are tenants arranged? These are just some of the frequently asked questions.

Take the obvious example of the “offers over” system that prevails in Scottish home buying when it comes to second-hand homes. All too often the advertised price can be far removed from the actual figure the seller has in mind, with an ad for a property at “offers over £100,000” hiding a hoped-for price tag of, say, £120k or £130k, or even more. And that means money wasted on a survey and frustration for would-be purchasers.

The Scottish capital holds many attractions for Irish buyers, be they family looking for a home for a son or daughter going to university there or dedicated investors who want to put their money to work.

But long-distance buying can be a daunting and expensive prospect.

And that is why Lara and her colleagues created a one-stop shop for people buying property in Edinburgh.

Ambience will not only source the property you want and introduce you to surveyors and lawyers to complete the purchase. We can then take care of all the finishing touches from interior design to arranging a letting agent.

Furnishing Solutions:
By using the Ambience one-stop shop service new investors and established landlords alike can hand over their interior design headaches to professionals. And in a totally cost effective way.

The Edinburgh rental market is extremely buoyant and our contacts within the letting agency sector are excellent. Indeed, most properties we handle are let out within a couple of weeks.
Our standard package can be rolled out quickly and efficiently to get a flat ready for the rental market…everything from sofas and beds to spoons and salt cellars, as our typical inventory shows. Our services are used by both private clients and large building firms.

This is a total package. The one-off, all-inclusive fee embraces every aspect of fitting out. The service covers every element of preparing a property to cater for the needs of tenants, from sourcing and installing fixtures and furnishings to dressing the individual rooms – right down to “the smallest room in the house”. The package also includes delivery, assembling individual furnishing items where necessary, co-ordinating the look and adding the finishing touches.