Do those pleading letters ever convince anyone to sell?

[Babypythagorus]

I want to buy in three jr four streets, and am getting desperate - anyone had or heard of any success with putting letters through doors?

I know someone who did have success, and it was one specific house, not even a street. He then got cold feet and pulled out of the purchase.

Yes, this has worked for a couple of people I know. No harm in trying.

I'm about to do this too. Not pleading so much as there's not much on the market in your area and we are wondering if you are interested in selling.

This has worked for friends on mine too - though it can end up being time wasting too we had several recently and followed them up as we were interesting in selling then ended up none of them could have afforded anything on our street - a simple right move or zoopla search would have saved them and us some time. our friends knew the streets and house sizes they could afford and only letter dropped in those.

We get these letters from time to time, don't see the harm in it but as pps have said, make sure the houses you're leafleting are within your budget so you're not wasting your and their time. Good luck!

My parents had a letter like this in 1980 and a simple sale ensued. A similar thing happened in 1983 and again in 1986 (an acquaintance rang them out of the blue, that time, which was a godsend because they were miserable in that house).

They are now trying to sell the house they've been in since 1986 but are having no luck - typical!

Yes it can work. Someone who may be just about to go on the market, or thinking about going on the market, might well contact you first from a letter.

Snot quite the same but my in laws mentioned someone in village was thinking of downsizing so we approached them and bought before they put it on market, they even knocked off £5000 as the reckoned that was what agent would have took!

Not even! Excuse the typos I've got right hand out of use

It worked for us, saw the house on Christmas Eve (owners were divorcing and were going to put it on the market in January) we put an offer in as soon as the agent opened after Christmas, and moved at the end of feb. Good luck!

I tried this with some particular houses on a development that we were interested in. We were renting on the development at the time. Only one person replied at all to say they weren't planning to sell. At least I was happier to buy a different house knowing that my preferred house was unlikely to be on the market soon.

We are thinking of doing this. We are living overseas but want to return to a specific area where very few houses come up for sale. do people generally not do this via an estate agent? We are very new to buying a house.

Yep, it can work - in fact if someone did it to my house inwould probably bite their hand off if the price was fair

We get lots of these letters and actually tried something similar (unsuccessfully) when we were house hunting.

If the area is really buoyant then I don't think it works as typically the houses would go to a bidding war so I doubt anyone would respond to a letter as they miss out on the higher potential price.