Speculative purchase letter

patchyX2

We're looking to move home later this year. Our shortlist of houses that we'd potentially move to is quite small; maybe 20 or so we'd buy without question, a further 50 or so we'd possibly consider depending on the price and the state. 

We're thinking of dropping some letters through the houses on our shortlist to state we're interested to see if they're considering selling.

I'm wondering about the timing of these letters. Should we send them now, explaining that we're looking at buying later in the year, or wait until we've sold our property before approaching them?  The former gives them time to think about their options, whereas the latter would make us look like more serious buyers. The other reason I'm leaning towards the former is that if they were planning to sell in the next few months anyway, they might come to us first rather than go to an EA.

The other thing to note is that we live just down the road, but in a smaller, well finished 2/3 bed, rather than the larger 3/4 beds we'd be targeting. With the cost of living going up, some of these there people (particularly as a large proportion are elderly) may be looking to downsize into something cheaper, so we could potentially offer a house swap - not sure if this has any bearing on which approach to go for.

I suppose we could do both, but we wouldn't want to annoy anyone!

UnderOffer

We received a speculative letter, the buyers were looking for our style house, they were under offer but hadn’t been successful in securing an onward purchase. At this time we had no intention of moving, but 18 months later found ourselves wishing to sell, I know the letter distributor found a property by then and I always wondered how many people might have approached them. 

I would indicate your current circumstances I.e, not yet listed for sale, describe the type of house you have, the type of house you are after and suggest this transaction might suit someone downsizing. I’d also add a clear date or month that you intend to list i.e. September/October to demonstrate you are serious. Someone might make contact to talk through their intentions. 

Good luck. Hope you are successful. 

NameUnavailable

No harm in leaflet dropping now and then again (if necessary) when you are in the sales process. Most will ignore but you might strike lucky.

trakky14

Personally I'd wait till yours was sold subject to contract