How to buy a house that is rented and not for sale?

cbr600f

I was wondering how one would go about enquiring about a property that is To Let with the intention of buying it.

Ive decided this may be a new tactic in my hunt for a nice house.

I thought i would make a list of houses, then send an email to the estate agents theyre being let by, to see wheather the landlord would consider selling up. Has anyone done this before? Any tips on how to word the email?

Thank you.

Ivana_Tinkle

I don't mean to sound rude, but why would you want to do this? It might make sense if there was a particular house you were in love with, but otherwise surely you're just making a list of houses that aren't for sale and then trying to persuade the owners to sell them to you.

Fuzzyness

not such a bad idea in my experience having jsut had to leave a rented house that the owner couldnt sell before we moved in. some owners may be desperate to sell but couldnt hence why they were rented out in the first place.

theartfullodger

Estate agents might be worth a try..

If you see somewhere you are REALLY keen on pay £4 to landregister, get owner's name & address, and write to him....

Better_Days

Well, it maybe worth a try.

As I am both looking to rent or buy I do see the same properties coming up to rent after the owner has been unable to sell.

Keep any letter to agents short and to the point.

cbr600f

I thought it might have been an idea, as Better days say's, some properties are only rented because no one will buy them.
Excellent I shall get on the hunt.

chewmylegoff

cbr600f wrote: »

I was wondering how one would go about enquiring about a property that is To Let with the intention of buying it.

Ive decided this may be a new tactic in my hunt for a nice house.

I thought i would make a list of houses, then send an email to the estate agents theyre being let by, to see wheather the landlord would consider selling up. Has anyone done this before? Any tips on how to word the email?

Thank you.

i can see how this might work if you are in an area where the rental market isn't that strong, and specifically in respect of properties which are empty (i.e. marketed as immediately available) and have been on the market for a while (to rent).

a couple of problems with this approach

rental properties advertised on rightmove often have very sparse details, often no floor plan and often only one photograph of the outside. therefore you'd be going along to viewings with no idea of what you're really looking at which is fine if you just want to rent places for a year but if you're looking to buy is not really ideal.

quite a lot of the rental stock advertised on rightmove is not actually available at all, having been let a while back. in my experience, quite a lot of letting agents save money on advertising fees by leaving old properties which are the sort of thing that people want to rent on rightmove, and then when you ring up they just say that it's not available anymore by they have X, Y, Z which might interest you. you can usually pick these using property bee - houses that appear great value that have been on the market for ages.

basically you are likely to end up wasting a load of your time, and a load of the agent's time too, so the agent will become unenthusiastic quite quickly. i suppose you could always just deal with the second issue by viewing on the basis you're looking to rent and then if you find somewhere you really like then attempt an offer to buy.

cbr600f

chewmylegoff wrote: »

basically you are likely to end up wasting a load of your time, and a load of the agent's time too, so the agent will become unenthusiastic quite quickly. i suppose you could always just deal with the second issue by viewing on the basis you're looking to rent and then if you find somewhere you really like then attempt an offer to buy.

I think youve hit the nail on the head there. Unless somewhere really special comes up i wont enquire about rented properties. As you say the EA's will soon get fed up if i asked about every rented property that piqued my interest.

kazca

There are many frustrated accidental landlords at the moment. Some will be relatively happy if they can live without realising the capital from their property and are getting a good return from renting.

Certain midrange priced properties produce a poor return from rent. If this is the sort of property you are looking to buy, the owner would no doubt be very happy to sell. Add a lacklustre agent and troublesome tenants into the mix and you may well pick yourself up a bargain.

Fuzzyness

i rented from an incidental landlord and he was rubbish. glad he asked us to move out in the end so that we could rent from someone who knew what they were doing.