How do we find off market properties?

[Detachedalltheway]

Hello,

We have been looking for a detached house in or around South Woodford area that is not stupidly expensive (less than a million) for a year, but with no luck. Is there any way to look for off market properties that we are missing?

We have registered with most estate agents in the area, but nothing is coming to the market. We have been checking Facebook Marketplace, asked friends and family living in the area if they could spread the word, but none of it has helped. Maybe we are looking for a unicorn, but it seems that quite a few sold properties in the past would have been within our budget if they were to come to the market again. Is there a way to look for those off market properties that we have not thought of? Maybe someone on here knows someone who’s thinking of selling a detached house in the area?

Thank you for you thoughts.

A buyers agent. They work for you and are in contact with agents, relocation, owners….
they will cold call properties that in principle you like. You pay them a commission on what you buy.

Thank you, we’ll give it a shot! We considered this once briefly, but it seemed that they mostly worked with international buyers and super expensive properties. I guess we lose nothing to try - thanks again for your advice.

Not at all, or certainly the one I have worked with before is for normal people like me and you!

That’s reassuring, thank you! 🙏 Would you be able to recommend anyone (if London based)?

I followed your advice, Tortephant, but unfortunately we cannot afford those agents. They ask for a few thousand retainer fee and 2-3% of the purchase price, which is just way too much for us. :(

Sorry to read that. That’s not what happened with me but I’m in the North. We had no retainer but we do pay a % of the purchase price.

it really helped us going this route. Could you negotiate on the retainer?

I don't know if it's still a done thing, but in a small area it was always possible to put a 'note' through the doors of property you might be interested in asking if they are interested in selling?

AI says:
"Yes, it is highly common and entirely legal in the UK. Both private buyers and estate agents regularly use this tactic—often called "letter-dropping" or "canvassing."
Because the UK property market is highly competitive and moving house is notoriously expensive, bypassing the open market is a popular strategy for serious buyers.

How it Works in the UK Market

• Private Buyers: A buyer who has their heart set on a specific street or village will slip a handwritten note through doors. This works incredibly well in tight-knit UK communities or highly sought-after school catchment areas.
• Estate Agent "Poaching": UK estate agents frequently drop leaflets saying, "We have a fully vetted, chain-free buyer looking for a 3-bed house on this exact road. If you've thought about selling, please call us."

Thank you. We’ve asked, but no, that’s a fixed amount they ask for to even engage (beyond the first free call to discuss). So, even if they do not manage to find you a property, they want to be paid for their time, which is understandable I guess. You do need to trust them though that they will actually do some work beyond a few calls to the local estate agents.

It works the other way too. Traditional agents will contact those known to them ahead of properties going public. And the private agents will also be selling of market for other clients, often via the Trad agents.

it’s about their contacts and relationships.

Thank you, sbplanet. We have actually tried this recently. I was a bit torn initially as I found it a bit intrusive, so we wrote it in a way that hopefully did not come off too strong or intrusive, and we apologised and said to please disregard if not of interest. It was a very stressful experience to deliver those to random strangers’ houses. 😅 We delivered about 30 and got literally 0 responses. So it is what it is, I guess… We tried. It is so disappointing as I feel we would have been so easy as buyers if we found what we were after. Oh, well… We have not tried asking the local estate agents if they would be willing to help us with our search (what you called poaching). We will try that next! Thank you so much for your advice.

I see. I can definitely see the benefit but I cannot justify the price. It is like paying another stamp duty to a private agent. 2-3% is tens of thousands…

We live in a fairly sought after town in a street of larger than average family houses, and we have several times had notes through from local agents saying they have a proceedable buyer for houses like ours and to contact them if we are interested in a valuation for selling. So I’d try that route next! Good luck.

I get that, and we didn’t have the retainer. Do consider that they are working for you. They have the ability to negotiate and achieve more off the asking price than you most likely can, and probably more than you are paying them. So the fee is covered by that and you aren’t paying stamp duty on it. On top of that you have a very competent agent handling the process once the sale is agreed. As well as access to properties you can’t find on your own.

the % pays for itself

edited to add, when you are struggling to find or buy using sales agents and adverts.

I live near this area and have just bought a house so I've done a lot of Rightmove trawling. Where exactly are you looking?

Your best bet would be to just make an offer on something which has been on the market a long time and hope someone is realistic! We were looking in North Chingford and there is a lot of very overpriced property which has been on the market for a long time with noone to buy it.. however, the small number of houses which come on the market in good condition do sell.

Having said that, if it's more Wanstead end you're actually looking at noone is selling you a detached house for less than a million pounds. There just aren't that many detached houses in south Woodford which is partly the issue? We looked at one in Woodford green which was detached and I think sold for less than a million in the end but it was a probate sale and probably needed 200k of work at least.

Thank you! Yes, we will definitely try this next. We did register with most local agents in the area, but we only ever get notifications when something has already hit Rightmove.

They told us the same thing more or less, that they can usually save us money by getting a discount on the house. So, if a house is 800k, and they take 2.5% on average, we would need to get it for 780k just to cover their fees (without the retainer fee). I am not sure someone selling off market would just reduce without trying to sell it for more on the open market. We are chain free, but still, I am not sure this would work in our favour.

It’s not reducing. It’s negotiating.

And for the seller they aren’t paying the sales agent fees so they are saving that.

You save stamp duty.

Both sides have an easy off market sale. The vendor also doesn’t have the intrusion of photos available for everyone to view, they keep their privacy and don’t have lots of randoms viewing either.

That’s great you managed to find something that works for you in the area. We are looking north from North Circular (we know we cannot afford southwest and towards Wanstead). A few houses came to the market while we were looking (within our budget) but every time tenanted, so we did not want to get involved (maybe that was dumb…). We do not even go and see if a house is outside of our budget, and for those that have been on the market for a while with no reductions, I feel those sellers probably do not need to sell and are holding out for what they think they can get. Maybe they would take a lowball offer? Or maybe they would get offended by it? I mean, we haven’t tried this, but it just does not sit right with me. I would gladly pay a reasonable asking price that we can afford for a quick and smooth sale if we found the unicorn we are looking for.

A friend sold her house ( not in your area) after someone put a note through her door. She’d been toying with the idea of moving, but having a ready made buyer made up her mind.

Become personally known to the local agents not just on their mailing list. We got our house through them speaking to my husband as they knew would be interested pre marketing. We were ready to market our old house - photos taken/details written up etc so it went on the market immediately.
Do you have a property to sell? Because if you do obviously an agent would want the sale too. To be taken seriously you’d need to be under offer to be proceedable.

Yes, I see your point. It makes sense. I think we would have maybe tried if it wasn’t for such a high retainer fee.

@Detachedalltheway have you tried joining community Facebook pages and asking on there. I've seen posts on my local page where people interested in moving into the area have posted to ask if anyone is interested in selling their home and specific things they require, number of bedrooms, parking or whatever and ask people to message them if they're interested in selling

We’ve tried this recently - no luck. We even bought nice postcards to post, hand wrote, apologised for intrusion… Maybe it somehow still seemed like spam, or they keep getting a lot of those from the agents, not sure. We have not had a single response out of around 30 we posted. Not sure what we did wrong to not get a single response back. Maybe those people are just not thinking of selling. I feel I would have responded if I thought it was a genuine note from someone even if it was to just say we’re not thinking of moving currently but best of luck, or something. Of course, I don’t expect any of that, I’m not that unreasonable. 😅 We tried and failed, but we know we tried at least.

I do know someone who sold their home in response to a letter through the door.

Oh, we cross-posted.

Well if that is the case, I think you have exhausted all options that I can think of.

To be honest, I would not respond unless I was interested in following it up - and most people won't be. You might just have to try a few more houses?