Cheeky request to buy parents house - AIBU?

[SewingMum46]

My DPs still live in the same house they built when first married in the 60s. It’s in quite a nice area and because DF is an amazing gardener has a lovely garden which can be seen through the gate. It’s split level so although DM has some mobility problems and is quite frail, it still works for them. They’d only leave if something happened to one of them.
They got a card through the door last week with a message that basically said this couple who live in a very posh house up a very posh street nearby want to downsize because their kids have left home, so please would they consider selling their house to them? It included something along the lines of “Of course we’d pay full market value but it would be good to avoid those annoying estate agents fees”. It was handwritten with the name and address of the couple.
I feel it’s a bit cheeky and tbh on the verge of being entitled. DPs don’t know these people at all - they said in the card they’ve “always thought the house is lovely” and now they’ve decided it would suit them better as their “current property is on 4 floors”.
DF hasn’t shown the card to DM. I told him to ignore it but hold onto it. He’s adamant that if he sold to them it would be above market value, but he doesn’t want to sell - it would be up to DB and me to sell the house after they are gone.
What would you feel if this happened to your DPs? I find it really upsetting.

@LeastofLeicester

I agree OP. I know it is a 'normal' thing to do and quite often encouraged, but I find it really entitled too. And quite presumptuous. You wouldn't do it with anything else. You wouldn't put flyers on car windscreens saying "I really like your car, want to sell?" Or stop someone in the street and ask to buy something they're wearing/carrying.

Estate agent ones I don't find so bad, it's not personal then, just a tactic to get more houses on their books.

I have had folk do this to my car. I have also stopped people in the street and asked them where they got their bag/shoes. I am not sure why its entitled or presumptuous?

@iwantmyownicecreamvan

I had similar happen to me twice in 2 years. One after my elderly uncle died. His house wasn't up for sale at that point and a neighbour put a letter through the door. I made the mistake of ringing her number, and as PP have said, it was the fact that she thought she would be doing me a favour by saving me estate agent fees - I presume she would have wanted some of the savings passed onto her - which really irritated me.

As it happened, I needed to use an Estate Agent anyway as I didn't live locally and couldn't do viewings, so I just blocked her number and never heard from her again.

The second seemed worse. Both my parents died within a month of each other at the start of the pandemic. Their house was empty but not up for sale - we didn't even have probate. A random local resident knocked on the neighbour's door asking after my parents, and on being told they had died (which I think he already knew) immediately asked about the house, saying he would love to buy it. She took his number and rang me - again all this malarkey about saving me EA fees - ffs don't do me any favours. I declined to even take his number and told her it would be going up for sale with an estate agent. She was really put out, said they seemed a lovely couple, and she never contacted me again.

When the house was put on the market it made a heck of a lot more than the initial EA valuation - and I'm talking like £50k more - we had to pay capital gains tax because the probate valuation had been a lot lower. So yes, they certainly would have got a bargain wouldn't they.

People who do this after people have died really annoy me - they are out to get a good deal on the back of other people's bereavement.

Using an EA was obviously the right decision in your case, but this:

I needed to use an Estate Agent anyway as I didn't live locally and couldn't do viewings

doesn't really make sense. The whole point of a private sale is that you don't need to do viewings at all. You allow the interested buyer to look around once, agree a price, and then proceed.

It’s very common to direct target particular houses. Estate Agents do it all the time as do occasionally savvy purchasers.

What’s the issue? They just ignore if not interested.

Haven't RTFT, but colour me sceptical that it's actually from a private individual wanting the house for their own use. There seems to be this idea nowadays that painting a commercial enterprise with whimsical folksinesseg on Innocent drinkssomehow makes it more endearing to punters. And yes, my DH who is in his 70s regularly gets approaches about our house (his details are the only ones on the deeds).
Back when I worked in housing policy, it was apparently a known thing that estate agents would sift through domestic rubbish bins in areas of private tenanted housing, looking for clues to the ages of the tenants. If you got an elderly tenant, there was a high chance it was a Rent Act protected tenancy (this was less than 15 years after new protected tenancies stopped being created), which heavily restricted the rights of the landlord to either evict the tenant or raise the rent. So you buy a property at below-market price, and wait a few years for the sitting tenant to die, before either selling or renting at full market value. Nice.

Tell your Dad to bin and ignore, and if another note arrives call them yourself and tell them to stop.

I agree with this. Your parents are not here on this earth to people-please real estate hunters who are after their home.

I have had folk do this to my car. I have also stopped people in the street and asked them where they got their bag/shoes. I am not sure why its entitled or presumptuous?

This is at the extreme end of MN-world, where any enquiry at all is seen as threatening and intrusive!

Even saying 'Hi' to your neighbours, or knocking on someone's door seems to prompt some people to enter a tailspin of catastrophising and fear that they are being spied on!

This seems to be a fairly common practice nowadays, and when it pays off, everyone benefits. I don't see how it's cheeky, it's just an enquiry, and a complimentary one at that.

it was apparently a known thing that estate agents would sift through domestic rubbish bins in areas of private tenanted housing

Say what now?

Also - I'd be really surprised that landlords weren't savvy enough to (a) know how old their tenants are, and (b) know that when the tenant dies they will be able to get a higher profit from the rental.

Private rental landlords are not naïve, vulnerable owners, prime to be ripped off by EAs who have rooted through the bins.

I think it's different because they are elderly people. In MN-world, older people should stop 'hoarding' their houses and gardens, and move out because younger people want and feel entitled to what they have.

@Octomore

This is going back 20 years+ (hence the comment about the Rent Act change being relatively recent). I have no idea about the profile of private landlords nowadays, but at that point many landlords were 'accidental' and few had more than a couple of properties. Dealing with correspondence from the public as I did, it would have been no particular surprise to find a fair number without much commercial awareness.
Also you have to be aware of what Rent Act protection meant. In many areas the 'fair rent' charged was so low by the late '90s/ early '00s that owners were struggling to break even on the rental. I can quite see that if you were an individual struggling with cash flow, the idea of getting a lump sumfrom a business that could afford to take the long viewmight have been tempting. After all, equity release works on a similar 'jam today instead of more jam tomorrow' basis.

I think it's a bit grim. I also think those letters you get through the door from estate agents are as well.
It's your home if you were ready to move you would have it up for sale if it isn't up for sale you don't want to move.
You wouldnt go up and stick a note under someone's wiper saying phone me I'll buy your car off you I'll offer a good price no worries.

We are currently selling our house. It’s under offer after a week.
If it all goes through, we will be paying the agent almost £30k.
If I’d had a note like that I’d have jumped at it.

You wouldnt go up and stick a note under someone's wiper saying phone me I'll buy your car off you I'll offer a good price no worries.

Except people do - it depends on the car!

YABU and no, they aren’t being ‘watched’. They have probably put notes through lots of letter boxes.

Your mother has a right to see the note - it was posted through her door.

If your parents go with them, they are chain free, probably cash buyers, offering full market value, no estate agent fees… this is a dream scenario for lots of people who are considering selling as they reach old age.

My parents bought their first house this way - they put notes through lots of letterboxes, and avoided estate agent fees.

We get these all the time. With the housing market as it is at the moment, people are just trying to get ahead of the crowd.

Loads of people do this!
We have done it. We went to buy a house at auction and lost out marginally.
We wrote them a letter to explain our love for the house and if they ever considered selling please contact us.
They knocked on the door the next day. He wanted £250k more than what he paid a auction the month before!! We obviously didn't but it but he tried his luck.
It very common people do this.

I've had someone come up to me while filling my car with petrol before and ask to buy it.

If you don't ask, you don't get! Your and your father are being very precious. What if your Mum saw the note and wanted to find out more?

@Octomore

Except for the fact that a disproportionate number seem to be examples of targeting older people

Are they really targeting older people?

Or is it that nice houses, with large plots, that don't come up for sale often tend to be lived in by older people? (Often purely by virtue of the fact that the residents have all been there a long time.)

In my area, if you leafleted all the houses in a sought-after but rarely available street, most of the owners would be older.

The number of MNers who have themselves received a similar note indicates that working-age adults received these too.

Indeed. If you were to leaflet our road and those nearby you’d ‘target’ a high number of older people because more than half of the large, 4+ bedroom houses with decent gardens are occupied by couples in their seventies or older who have remained in the family home they bought 30 years ago.

@GreenFingersWouldBeHandy

I've had someone come up to me while filling my car with petrol before and ask to buy it.

If you don't ask, you don't get! Your and your father are being very precious. What if your Mum saw the note and wanted to find out more?

Well, Mum is 90 and very insistent that she wants to stay where she is. A move at this stage would not be helpful to her. And DF would probably never hear the end of what she thought of the people who’ve sent it!

I think you are being massively over-sensitive.

I cannot fathom at all, why this is upsetting or bothers you. They are local, they like the house and wonder if it's available. They have said of course they'd pay market value, they are not trying to steal your parents house ffs.

You just reply no thanks, or you could say yes we'd take £100k over.

Genuinely cannot understand why this has offended you or your parents.

Sounds almost like you don't want the house snatched out from under you!

I think it's really cheeky.

The whole point of putting your house on the market is that the market sets the price. So by putting a note through the door they are hoping to avoid any buyer competition altogether and get in under the radar with an off-market sale that may work out very well for them, particularly as there isn't an agent involved who will be aware of buyer interest in the area, recent sales prices and also things you could do to the house prior to putting on the market to increase buyer interest and competition.

An agent will (or a good one should) negotiate hard on behalf of the seller and get the true market value for the home. You don't get that with an off-market sale. It's just the reality of real estate.

Particularly as your parents are elderly and unwell this is more than a little sneaky.

I get why you’d not like the sense of someone having weighed up the pros and cons of your home when it’s not even for sale. It feels intrusive- like a stranger has been wondering about your private home life. And with older people who’ve decided not to move, then I get why they’d feel “at least wait till I’m dead!!!”.

When we sold a house many years ago the purchaser called round to measure up for curtains etc and said how pleased he'd been to see it was sale, he'd wanted that house because of its position. Had he dropped a card through the letterbox we could have saved a fortune in fees! Since my OH died a couple of years ago one or two people have said that if I ever planned on moving, this is a big house and a lot of garden, to let them know! I didn't think they were being at all pushy.