Would you leaflet properties you are interested in buying

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Highly sought after location but nothing on the market yet. Is leafleting whole area a good idea? Will the potential vendor prefer to sell privately or go through agent for competitive bidding?

It's worth a try. It might prompt someone who is thinking about downsizing or relocating to do it? However, if it's that desirable then others will be doing this too! We frequently got them where we used to live - tiny and very desirable road. It made no difference there.

One EA offered to leaflet a couple of roads for us when we did move. I don't know if that happened. Nothing appeared for sale on there in the next few months and we ended up buying elsewhere. But several houses did then come up within the next 18 months so maybe it did prompt some people to sell (eventually!).

I have never known anyone who sold as a result of being leafleted, but there's always a first time.

I think I depends where you are. If it's the kind of area where bidding wars happen, it wouldn't be in the sellers interests to follow up a leaflet.

Otherwise, this did work successfully for me ten years ago and the seller saved estate agent fees, we processed the sale privately. They got my leaflet on the day they were about to contact estate agents for valuations. I made a reasonable offer and was immediately proceedable as I was in a rental.

I wouldn’t leaflet as such . I would do a handwritten personalised note.

I've heard of it a couple of times in our village.

We get leafleted about once a year.

You've got nothing to lose by trying

I know someone who sold a house as a result of a note through the door so it is successful sometimes

My Mum sold our family home to someone who put a note through the door. She had been widowed young and it gave her the push to move on. Not sure she’d have been able to face listing it.

(I don’t think the purchaser knew she was widowed, think the note went to a few neighbours too. It wasn’t gushy but it did say how much they liked our street and that made her feel it was time for another family to be brought up there).

My parents sold their house like this. They had recently retired and were thinking of downsizing from a huge 1 acre garden. Letter through the door was the impetus to move, the people that bought it were a young family at that time, and I think are still there 30 years later!

Where I am now we get “leaflets” all the time from agents. DS (age 7) told me the other day that had seen one on the mat and was really worried that we might want to sell, bless him.

We sold my mum's house like this when she went into a carehome. It meant no hassle with making it sale ready or dealing with estate agents etc. Price we got was maybe £5000 less that we might have got the open market but so worth it for the ease/

That's how I bought my current house - it was in a particular Close I wanted to live in - I leafleted and got two responses!

I'd write a personal, handwritten ideally , note.
Most desirable streets get leafleted ( as in by estate agents ) I put those straight in the bin 😬. Personal one is different.
We've known our local estate agents for years and really good ones ( mostly been local for 20+ years ) know people who might keen to sell ( downsize e.g ) but don't have to. Often live in the best roads hence not many sales/little movement.
As in can be contacted without hassle of putting house on market, lots of viewings, photos etc.
We bought like this because agent remembered xyz mulled over selling, called and they did.
Also if you know people who live in the desirable street, mentioning you're keen to buy there, any advice, never harms.
Good luck !

If someone is thinking of selling anyway it would be attractive to them as they can sell privately and avoid both the hassle of viewings, and the estate agent fees.

Worth a try.

I recently had a house purchase fall through and put a message on the local Facebook for the very specific area I was looking in and had a quite a number of responses - none of them actually came to anything, mostly because they weren't bang on what I wanted and it was literally just a handful of houses that I would have been interested in.

I feel like in some ways now is a particularly good time to try this because the market is depressed, some people have given up trying to sell and others are holding off because they think it's more trouble than it's worth at the moment. But on the other hand, it might make agreeing on a price tricky where the sellers are going to know you are super keen for the property and expect you to be offering "top of the market" price which you likely won't want to do (and a mortgage company might potentially undervalue)

We bought our house by putting a handwritten letter through the door. Very much from the heart stating the reasons we’d love to buy it.
It worked for us.

Yes! We did it and had 4 replies, all downsizes or probate properties, two were procedable straight away and the sale of the one we chose went through in 8 weeks. The sellers were all happy for their properties to go to a local family so we made sure our leaflet and viewing leant heavily on our connections and desire for a long term family home as it was a very emotional process for the sellers.

We did offer asking price, and didn't quibble after survey either, despite the odd thing coming up. We were also flexible on the moving date and chain free ourselves. You have to be willing to pay top notch because otherwise why wouldn't they test the market and with probate the executor is legally required to get the best value for the estate.

We know another two families who found their property the same way as the estate has a lot of elderly who have lived here since it was built.in the 1970's and is very popular so there is a lot of competition and houses often seem to be sold this way.

Was done to us and it backfired on them.

Lovely handwritten letter put through the door saying how much they loved M&D house & garden and would really like to buy if we were thinking of selling.
Unfortunately (for them) this happened a short while after my Ddad died and immediately after Dmum died.
Don't know if they were aware of our situation and it was deliberate (they lived just along the road but definitely didn't know M&D personally) or if it was just bad timing but it shocked us while we were still feeling very raw.
When we eventually did sell the house, turns out they were the first (of many) to view (very popular house due in part to its huge private garden) and they made the top offer but we would not sell to them and instead went with a slightly lower offer.

As I say, an unusual set of circumstances and possibly just bad timing.☹️

How very odd to turn down the money out of spite when you say yourself they did not know your parents and you have no idea if they did it deliberately.

Not really done in our area but a friend took a chance and an older couple got back to them. They wanted to sell but couldn’t face lots of viewers so a private sale suited them perfectly

You have nothing to lose!

I sold as the result of being leafleted.
It was years ago. We had half an idea that we would sell in a year or so. Letter came through the door offering 5k over market value. So we sold to them. Worked well all round

We get leafletted by EAs from time to time, usually saying how much they are selling/sold a local house for and do we want a valuation. I do look at which house they sold and how much for then it goes in the bin with the rest of the junk post.

I would definitely get a proper valuation before even talking to a random person wanting to buy, I wouldn't mind skipping the whole EA bit, viewings and fees, etc, if it was a viable above market value offer, with all the proper legalities and with solicitors on both sides.

Definitely. That is how DH got our house in 1997. He loved the area and loved a few of the properties and he just put a note through the door.

The vendor had recently lost his wife, had not yet put it up for sale and the whole thing was done privately and without a real estate agent (although clearly via solicitors). Until he died about 10 years after he used to come and have tea with us. His son and grandchildren occasionally come now for a bbq as they live in the house the vendor then bought a few streets away.

I would have been concerned that they had read the obituary in a local paper and had tried to get in first, if it looked as though the house would be sold, a bit opportunistic and inconsiderate if so. On the other hand some people might not want to deal with EAs and all that while sorting out a loved ones estate, a quick effortless sale might be good. We had people knock on the door while clearing MILs house asking if it would be for sale and for how much, we didn't take offense. but it was a a couple of month after she had died.

Just politely knock at the door equipped with a fine baseball bat.