Thank you Mumsnet - Letter drop success

[Ohchristmastreeohchristmastree]

Just to say thank you to mumsnet for helping get my lovely new home.

We had a buyer for our house, but couldn’t find anywhere. So encouraged by those on mumsnet who have suggested letter dropping, that is what I did.

I sent out about 25 letters and 3 people got back to me within 2 hours! The first and only one we visited we negotiated a price we were all happy with and everything went pretty smoothly. They were really lovely sellers (and luckily loathed estate agents as much as me) and very proactive, so here we are two and a half months later in a beautiful period property, which has everything on our ‘want’ list and more.
So ‘thank you’ to all of you that have suggested doing letter drops. It worked out great for us.

That's a lovely thing to hear, friends of mine letter dropped the entire block of flats they wanted to move to in London and got one that way, the vendors were chuffed and saved on massive London agent fees... Here's to printers!

Congratulations! Hope you enjoy your new home

Ahhh that’s a lovely story in all this doom and gloom. Congratulations. We’ve had a couple of beautiful letter drops recently in our area (embossed paper, personal messages). I definitely think they work - obviously they do, you are proof! Where are you moving to?

Brilliant! Happy new home

So was the house even up for sale?

Fabulous news.

Can I be nosey? What did you put in the letter? Did you say much about yourself/ family, or did you keep it business like?

I’ve got a pal who did this successfully and I’m toying with doing it. Feel v nervous about it for now good reason!

Its a great idea and sometimes the 'push' people need, that have been wanting to sell for ages but never get round to it!

I put the letters through the doors just before Christmas so I think a few of the vendors were planning to go on the market in the new year. I think we caught them at the right time.

I put a few personal details in the letter, just saying that we were a local family keen to stay in the area as all our friends are local. I also outlined the basics that we were looking for. Our sellers were moving to be closer to their first grandchild. They were happy it went to a local family.

Honestly it is really worth a try, I was surprised at the number of responses. It might be worth writing now, to try and catch those who are waiting to put their house on the market in spring.

Good luck!

Lovely news! Can I ask, did you mention your budget in the letters that you sent? Did you hand deliver?

Congratulations. We also got our place that way several years ago. I letter dropped about eight streets in deepest darkest January, moved in in the April. Kept the note very short. Said we'd lived in the area for many years and were now looking to buy somewhere. I got about six replies, some were well out of our price range. The one we succeed in getting was in probate, needed a lot of work, wasn't yet on the market although they had had valuations from several agents which informed the price discussions. The strangest thing was negotiating the seller face to face. It took a few weeks of back and forth, thinking it through, before we settled on a figure. The best part was completing bypassing estate agents. I'd recommend anyone do it. We did it because we had to move out of our place and it was January and there was absolutely nothing decent on the market. If you know of an area you want to live it, then I say just go for it.

@heypizza we didn't mention budget at all. Not necessary I don't think. People would just assume you'd checked out price history in the area and would not be letter dropping if it was out of price range.

Also like @Ohchristmastreeohchristmastree our sellers were happy for it to go to a local family. I think if you're local to the area it's a big bonus. Obviously it massively benefits any seller to sell direct as they are the ones saving the estate agents fee.

@heypizza Just realised my two posts sound contradictory. We knew we couldn't afford a super done up, extended property in our search area, only a project. Sometimes hard to tell from the outside, hence why some were out of the budget and some weren't.

@missl1 Thank you! The problem is that we're trying to upsize to a family home, and everything that's on is way overpriced (also nothing has ticked quite enough boxes so far).

Very little coming on currently, and we're under offer, so I'm thinking of doing the same but don't really know whether to state our budget or not. It's a strange market currently.

@heypizza personally I wouldn't state my budget. I'd let them assume you can afford it so no one is put off from contacting you. Once someone is in a dialogue with you (buyer in hand so to speak) I think they'd be more open to negotiating/ re-thinking expectations. And the fact they save estate agent fees provides the initial wriggle room for your negotiation. Don't put off anyone from making that initial phone call.

Thank you, makes sense not to put people off too soon!

We didn’t say our budget.