Valley Park, Chandler's Ford, Hampshire - Leafleting?

[DreamBigLittleMum]

We recently missed out on a property on Pennard Way in the Valley Park area of Chandler's Ford, Hampshire. We've been looking for about six months now and have missed out on several other properties before, but we were both particularly devastated by this one as we'd really fallen in love with the location. We've looked at a number of other properties in different locations since then but every one is being held up to Pennard Way and falling short. It feels like we've left our hearts there a bit.

Because of this we've been researching leaflet drops, but it seems as though a lot of this sort of thing is done online now? The area we love only covers a few streets (Pennard Way, Harlech Drive, Tenby Drive, Newport Close and Raglan Close). I was wondering if anyone has any suggestions on the best way to feel out people in the area to see if they might be interested. Door knocking, hand written notes, printed leaflets, Facebook groups? Or is it not worth it? Should we just focus our energies on the properties that ARE available?

Any advice would be greatly appreciated!

Having lived in the area i can can confirm that in reality Valley Park and Knightwood Park are not all that, houses really packed in and postage stamp size outside spaces. I would suggest looking at other parts of Chandler's Ford, the older houses have good bones and the the property/plot size ratio are more reasonable.

We receive mailers from estate agents all the time, if someone isn't interested in selling anything you send in addition will end up in the same place, the bin!

Register with every local agent and set alerts on RightMove/Purple Bricks etc.

OP at the moment it is very, very much a sellers market. So much so that private sales have become less attractive for (potential) vendors. In our area good houses are going for between 10 and 30% over the asking; the rubbish stuff is frankly hanging around for months.

That means if you've got a good house to sell (and it sounds like you've narrowed it down to your favourite half dozen streets) then for a vendor any potential saving in EA fees is likely to be far outweighed by what can be gained by a bidding war.

You might get lucky if you can find a vendor through leafleting, but you'd probably have to make a really generous offer to make it worth them not listing it (if EA fees are about 1-2%, then a potential offer 10-20% over the asking beats it hands down!)

I'd focus your energies on building relationship with the EAs in you chosen area and calling them once a fortnight to make sure you're top of mind when something suitable comes up.

Thanks for the advice. Not anything I wasn't expecting. I did laugh at the idea of setting notifications on RightMove and touching base with Estate Agents once a fortnight! We are viewing several properties per WEEK and are on first name terms with most of the agents. They've been calling us to offer things before they go on the market because they know our position so well. We've made offers on five properties so far and there are no longer bidding wars. It's a best and final in 24 hours. You know it's going to go over asking, it's just gambling by how much and if you bet wrong it's gone, no second bites at the apple. The last place we put in an offer had 15 offers in 24 hours, so they cut off the viewings. We are chain free and offered almost 10k over asking which apparently got us into 'the last four' but ultimately we were out bid by a cash buyer who put in an offer the EA said even they were shocked by.

We've been scatter-gunning it a bit with the traditional approach. I just wondered if focussing on a particular area and thinking outside the box might help but it sounds like we're just going to have to get back in the hamster wheel with everyone else until something finally comes off.

OP I hear you, its a nightmare at the moment. Is it worth considering properties that are a bit cheaper than you currently are, as that would give you a bit more scope to make a winning offer? That is actually what we've done and it has worked for us. Good luck.

Have you tried Zump? We used Zump and sent out some "we are interested" Zumps and 2 people got back to us.