Would you leaflet properties you are interested in buying

[hedgerqq]

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?

My friend bought her last house like this. Do it. Worst case no one gets back to you and you lose a few quid on printer ink and paper.

I'd try and make it letters though not a leaflet?

DSis bought a house like this, and we almost managed it - the people decided not to move in the end. I don't see any harm in it.

Yes! Two of my friends brought in highly desirable villages where property rarely comes up.
One of them had done this twice to find a house, she said she never looks on line anymore and just drives around looking st locations then write hand written notes with some basic details and a bit about why they want to move there.

If I was on the fence about listing in this market and a note came through I would 100% get in contact.

My parents bought our family home.after writing to the owner. It just so happened he and his wife were divorcing and wanted to sell quietly.

@TimeandMotion
Like I said, we have no idea if it was deliberate or just incredibly poor timing but it is always possible that they caught local gossip and decided to try their luck?
We will never know.

Spite?
Maybe but grief can do these things and we had no loyalty to them, just anger at their timing.

As for the money, yes we took a lower offer but it was only a few £k and in the grand scheme of things it was insignificant.

We had one just the other week and it annoyed me... mainly because it went on about how they were downsizing and loved our road.

Probably being over sensitive but this is our family home and we love it. I took it as "we have a huge house and now want a tiny one like yours" (which I know isn't what they meant at all, particularly as ours isn't actually that small, but that's how I took it!).

So maybe just think about what you're writing in your letter/ leaflet? I've never been offended before and we've probably had 3 or 4 in the years that we've lived here.

Good luck!

This

Thanks everyone for the suggestions. Good to know many of you have already done this before. For those who did make it happen, how did you manage to agree on a price and manage the whole process without EA?

You actually realise just how little estate agents actually do!!! I spoke to the vendors frequently to make sure everything was in ordering both sides and also went round to measure etc. it's important to have communications with them. To be honest, it's the solicitors that do all the work anyway!

The first step was sending my mortgage offer in principle to the vendor and then they accepted my offer. The solicitors then took over.

I don’t think notes through the door can hurt, we get them occasionally. The attraction of buying privately varies though. We did it as we found our house through a personal connection and the estate agent the seller was setting up was happy to step back. It worked really well for both sides. But we were proposing it for a flat my MIL was interested in and the sellers didn’t get the value to them at all, felt unprotected etc. we didn’t go ahead in the end for other reasons.