Approaching home owners directly offering to buy - has anyone done this successfully

SpongeBobHexagonPants

We are in a position to move, no chain, completely genuine cash buyers but can't find what we are looking for on the market in our area.

We've been looking for about a year and have been messed around badly for various reasons. Three times we have been let down through no fault of our own.

Is it worth approaching home owners directly offering to buy? It would be nothing more than a leaflet through the door.

We're torn between feeling it's cheeky (it probably is) and nothing ventured, nothing gained.

Has anyone tried this with any success?

steve1980

Is this with properties already on the market? If so then they'd still have to pay the agents. If it's for homes not on the market then you've got to sit and wait for x amount of time for them to find a property and so on.

Why have you been let down before?

GAH

Id say go for it, it certainly does no harm if you are looking for something specific. Do a little leaflet explaining a little about your postion, what your looking for and your contact details.

You may catch somone who was considering selling shortly or in the near future.

Worst that can happen is that you get no replies.

Other option would be (if you have specific roads in mind) to go into estate agents, ask them if they have been out to see any potential vendors in the last one or two years in the roads you are looking, and ask them if they would contact them to see if they are looking to sell as well.

Most Agents will have a lot of previous clients that have had their homes valued, and haven't put their homes on for one reason or another.

SpongeBobHexagonPants

No, was thinking for properties not on the market already.

Tales of woe are, twice we have offered to buy houses we were led to believe were on the market only to find after much to-ing and fro-ing that they in fact already had a buyer in place quite some way down the line with the process already.

In both cases the vendor was fed up with waiting for their buyer to complete and had put the house back on the market as a bluff to get things moving again. We were not told this.

Our interest in the properties was enough to kickstart their process again and we were bounced out.

The other house needed a lot of work. We unwittingly employed a very poor architect who gave us bad advice. The council would not sanction any of the work and we had to pull out as there was no point in continuing.

hazyjo

There have been a few success stories on here re leafleting. Not sure what you'd search under to find them, but there was some very helpful advice about what to put in the letters/leaflets, etc. Maybe search for 'leafleting' or something. Might bring up one or two.

I don't think it's cheeky at all. Perfectly reasonable. Will see if I can find old threads in a mo.

Jx

SpongeBobHexagonPants

Thanks everyone! Really appreciate your thoughts.

SailorSam

My Mum was a taxi driver and when she was house hunting she just mentioned to a fare in the cab that the house where the woman was getting out was the type she'd been looking for. The woman said it was her Sisters and they'd been hunting themselves as they wanted to move.
Put an offer in that night and still here 30yrs later.

JimmyTheWig

I do think it's cheeky, but I don't think that you've got anything to lose.

If such a leaflet came through my door it would probably go straight into the recycling. If I took the time to read it and consider it then I would be wondering what you were up to and what the scam was! (Sorry, I'm cynical!)
Probably the best case scenario you'd get from me is that it might kick-start my interest in selling and I might go to an Estate Agent. In which case, presumably, you'd get to hear that my house was on the market and could proceed from there.

PasturesNew

I am selling to somebody that did this. Leaflet dropper got me first .... the person who, later, just knocked on the door when they saw my car had already missed the boat.

SpongeBobHexagonPants

Lol yes I'd probably think that too JimmyTheWig. Am also cynical and would assume a catch. But we're very disheartened at the moment and feel it might be better to be proactive rather than reactive. I guess the worst that can happen is that it ends up in the bin.

busybird

I had a friend who dropped a note through a letterbox, saying they lived in the area but really liked their house, and would they please contact them if they were in the market for selling at any point. It turned out that they owners contacted them and arranged a sale - bit flukey I guess but it can happen - that was about ten years ago and they are still there. I am in the opposite position, I wish someone would contact us to buy our house. It has been on the market now for a year and I am seriously contemplating using a direct sale method as estate agents just don't seem to be generating much interest, but I can't find much about how successful this method would be.