ways to increase the chances of finding a home

[dooneby]

We've been given notice to leave our rental property and are now (imminently I hope) in a position to buy our own for the first time.

We've applied for social housing as when we were told about having to leave a month ago I was working part time (husband is now unable to work due to disability) and we wouldn't get another private let. However, I've since increased to FT and interviewed for a job and will be made an offer next week. This will approx. double my wages from my initial PT wage. This means we might now be in a position to rent privately again until we can find a suitable house but I'm not keen on that for a variety of reasons.

I have been pouring over all the websites and there is hardly anything available in our budget and required location.

I'm trying to thing of ways to increase our chances of finding a suitable house. I was thinking of going into local estate agents to speak to them face to face and let them know our requirements and that we're not in a chain.

I've also heard of people putting letters through doors of areas they're interested in to see if anyone is considering selling and know of 2 people who were successful with this.

Does anyone have any other suggestions on increasing our chances of finding a home?

Personally I am not a fan of dropping a letter through a stranger's letterbox, I know it works for some but I found it cheeky.

When we were starting to think about selling my late parents house last year we received such a letter (love your house, live just up the road but yours has a nicer garden, would love to buy it etc etc) and it immediately got my back up.
Here we were, getting ready to sell the family home due to bereavement and someone has actually been eyeing it up (obviously seeing it was empty) and thought they could get in there.
We ignored it but when we went to market they made themselves known to us and actually made the highest B&F (showed they really wanted it) but we turned it down and went with a lower offer. I just couldn't get over the cheek at what was a sad time for us.

Worth mentioning that when we received the B&F offers the EA let us know that one of the potential buyers had written us a letter and asked if were we willing to accept it? We did and although they were only the third highest offer it swung it for us and they got the house.
In many ways the two letters were very similar (live local, love the house & garden, family home, ideal for growing family, lots of space for dogs to run around etc etc) but one was delivered at the right time and the other not.

Thank you for your reply @Dougieowner I'm sorry for your loss and can completely understand why you would feel that way. I don't think that's appropriate at all.