Advice wanted on how to find private sellers

serious_saver

I've heard a lot of people talking about privately marketing their houses but as a buyer I really haven't come across many for sale. Am I missing something, are there any good sites which people use to market their homes?

Does anyone have any tips for finding private sellers and has anyone had any success this way?

sonastin

The advice usually given to people wanting to sell privately is "don't bother - buyers won't be able to find you".

googler

A true private sale is one in which the owner doesn't place their home on the open market, and sells to someone they know without advertising, or one in which an agent finds a buyer for a seller without advertising or marketing. Without knowing the owner, or being on the agent's books, you'll never find these.

However, some folks here seem to regard owners selling their own property without an agent marketing it for them as a 'private' sale. This is sometimes referred to as a FSBO (For Sale by Owner) so you may want to add this to your search terms.

I gather tepilo is a FSBO site, you may want to look there.

Orpheo

I have heard that buyers have had some success from leaflet drops. But, unlike all of my other opinions, I can't guarantee that this is 100% fact.

Richard_Webster

Why does OP want to buy from a private seller?

Gwhiz

Richard_Webster wrote: »

Why does OP want to buy from a private seller?

I assume what he means is that he wants to know if there are there properties for sale that might not be marketed through agents. There seems to be a lack of quality property on the market (where I am anyway) and so anything to find more stock has to be looked at. However, as has been said, there aren't really "private sales" only people who may be motivated to sell by a leaflet drop.

Tafmack

Why does OP want to buy from a private seller?

Perhaps because private sellers can reduce the price by the amount they would pay in EA fees from the outset?

I sold my home myself in 2009. The main reason I chose to do so was because it was in a very popular area (Brighton) where a large percentage of buyers are internet savvy so thought it would be relatively easy to attract viewers. I had a buyer within 4 weeks and sold 10 weeks later. I am now trying to buy in the villages around Ipswich in Suffolk (looking via EA's and private sales) and find very few private sales posted here.

The sites I posted my house on in 2009 were:

thehouseexchange.co.uk
brightonvivastreet.co.uk
myfreeads.net
houseladder.com
estateagent.co.uk
home.co.uk
brighton.gumtree.com

Gumtree was where my purchaser saw the house advertised.

Hope this helps.

Richard_Webster

You could buy more cheaply because there are no agents, but some of those who sell privately have an over optimistic idea of the value of their property having made unsafe assumptions from price calculation sites.

HypnoNu

We bought our current house privately, we just flyered a load of houses which we thought we could afford (by estimating value based on sold prices) with a photocopied handwritten letter and got a fair few responses. We went to see the house we were in and bought directly from the vendor without the house ever going on the market.

Worth a shot if theres a few roads you know you'd like to target.

PPPingu

We've also gone down the leafleting route - from about 200 leaflets we have had 4 responses.

googler

Dare I point out that private sellers are not subject to the provisions of the Property Misdescriptions Act in the way that EAs are?

A private seller can tell you anything about their property, even if it's blatantly false, and there's no recourse in law if they have done so.

Caveat Mucho Emptor