Anyone got the house of their dreams by putting a flyer through the door?

rj1000

Hi all,

In the process of looking for a '10-20 year house' so that we can move out of a flat, other half can get pregnant and I can have my x-box room (with surround sound system, 42 inch LCD tv and built-in fridge).

Some of our friends/house buying magazines have suggested we drop flyers through doors of houses we like asking people to contact us if they are looking to sell. Apparently there's gazillions of people who want to sell but are unsure about putting on the market due to uncertainty over house prices/swine flu/political unrest in the amazon basin etc etc.

Just wondered if anyone had actually tried this and managed to get the house they wanted by doing so. We did some flyer drops last week and I haven't heard a jot (although the fact I misspelt my e-mail address on the flyers may have something to do with this......doh!).

Cheers

R

sarah_elton

My mum sold our old family house to someone who put a letter through the door. As did our next door neighbours at the time, oddly.

Think it's pretty rare, but it might happen and you've nothing to lose. OH and I are going to try it this Saturday as we are waiting for something very specific to come up (we have a very small search area and I have a criteria list Sitting around waiting for things to come to market at the moment)

Welshwoofs

My Father bought a house in the pub! He was househunting in a village he liked, stopped for lunch at the local pub and got talking to locals about his house hunt...turned out one of them had been thinking about selling up but wasn't sure he wanted the hassle of viewings etc.

PasturesNew

rj1000 wrote: »

... so that we can move out of a flat, other half can get pregnant and I can have my x-box room (with surround sound system, 42 inch LCD tv and built-in fridge)...

Is this living?

Ditto

The estate agent asked me what areas I was interested in as they would do a flyer drop for me, so I suppose it could work but would people take you seriously?

mrstinchcombe

PasturesNew wrote: »

Is this living?

Hell yeah!

mlz1413

as you have already done a flyer drop with a mis-spelt email address it may have made a bad impression with anyone who did try and contact you.

if you really don't want to go through agents then why not try an ad in the local paper for the area? you could put a price range and area and then any special requirements with a phone number and email.

silvercar

Our buyers found their dream house this way

Our house went under offer within hours of going on the market, so they never got to know it was on the market. Around the same time they leafleted some houses. When our first buyers dropped out, I texted them and they appeared and bought.

russet

We are considering doing something similar, I started another thread on it as I didn't see yours. We have had several flyers through our door from estate agents looking for houses to sell (we are renting at present) so I don't see that there is any harm in buyers doing the same.

rj1000

russet wrote: »

We are considering doing something similar, I started another thread on it as I didn't see yours. We have had several flyers through our door from estate agents looking for houses to sell (we are renting at present) so I don't see that there is any harm in buyers doing the same.

I've always thought that the old " We have 25,000 people who are looking for a house just like yours!" or "Mr I P Freely has sold his house and is in deperate need of a house to buy!" flyers that estate agents put through doors are just marketing to get you to put it on with them. I even tried to make my flyer look as amateurish as possible (unfortunately I have to admit the misspelt e-mail address wasn't part of this plan) so that people wouldn't think it was an estate agent flyer in disguise!

purplebuzz

Why don't you re-do your flyer drop with the correct email address this time (and maybe put a note saying that you mis spelt the email address last time) then maybe if anyone had replied, then they might resend their email knowing that they hadn't been ignored deliberately.

At the end of the day what have you got to lose!!! And you never know you might find your dream house in the end!