"House wanted" leaflets

[LateToTheAprilParty]

We're trying to move, and have just lost a house that we really loved to a higher bidder. We're now considering leafleting the street to see if anyone fancies selling us their house privately. Does anyone know if this technique actually works, or if it's just something people do on daft property programmes?

Well the estate agent did it on our behalf when the house we were buying fell through and we got a response in the exact street we wanted. So it can work.

if you really are that keen i would definitely do it, there is bound to be someone on the street dithering over whether to put their house on the market or not.

all i would say is make it convincing that it is from you IYSWIM, we often get EA flyers through the door and ignore them as they are clearly just touting for business

good luck!

Yes, we did it once. Ended up with a few leads including a couple in a street we eventually bought in (but not the actual house)

A friend of mine bought a flat this way. He identified the block he wanted, then wrote to all the flats in it asking if anyone wanted to sell. An old lady contacted him and he bought her flat privately, avoiding the expense of estate agents. Everyone happy.

Yep, can work: we bought a house this way. I also got lots of other responses from people wanting to sell.

My parents Recently had one through the door - they gave it to a neighbour who was putting their house in the market.

The people who did the leafleting did go and look, but as far as I know, chose not to buy.

I agree that the trick is to make it very personal, so it is obvious you're genuine. The people on my parent's leaflet had put their photo on it, so you could see. Otherwise it would have been thrown away.

We did it and found somewhere that way, agreed a price, then they thought about it and decided that they wanted another £30k from us as we were obvs so keen. People can take advantage when they know you really want their house, so make sure they know you're interested in other places too.
Have just bought a diff place around the corner for £100k less, so all worked out, but they strung us along for months. Grrrr