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Somebody should build a service for this. My wife and I recently moved and, while we ended up somewhere we like, there was one particular street right next to
by dbatten 8y ago
Somebody should build a service for this.
My wife and I recently moved and, while we ended up somewhere we like, there was one particular street right next to our old house that we always wished we would be able to get a home on. When we talked to other neighbors that were thinking about moving, we found out that we were far from the only ones eyeing that street. Unfortunately, people there rarely sold and, when they did, the homes got snapped up quick.
We thought about sending letters to see if somebody wanted to sell to us without going the realtor route, but we never did. Facebook ads would have made it way easier. And a service where we forked over $50 to run some ads plus $250 as a reward and pushed a button would have been better still.
- matwood 8y ago> We thought about sending letters to see if somebody wanted to sell to us without going the realtor route I've gotten letters like that before and always assumed they were Realtors trolling for clients.
- pavel_lishin 8y agoIn a similar situation, here, except I've gotten phone calls asking if I was interested in selling my house. I don't own a house.
- chasedehan 8y agoThe people I know who have actually done it wrote a personalized response as to why they wanted to live in that particular area. i.e. "my son lives on X street and I would like to live by him" or "the access to hiking/biking trails is one of the things I cherish the most." , etc. Otherwise, you are right that I think most of those letters are from Realtors and go immediately in the trash.
- matwood 8y agoI get ~4 calls/day from realtors wanting to list my house. It was so bad last summer that my wife changed her voice mail to start with "If you are Realtor, never call me again...". At this point I would be suspicious of even a personal letter like you mention above. I really hope technology continues to squeeze realtors out of business. At one point I was indifferent to them, but they have turned my opinion negative.
- ttul 8y ago“Somebody should build a service for this.“ Noooooo.... please don’t ruin this... Let’s keep it for us nerds, okay?
- sneak 8y agoIf you’re a nerd, you’ll find some other way to differentiate instead of simply gatekeeping knowledge.
- astura 8y ago>We thought about sending letters to see if somebody wanted to sell to us I heard this is something real estate investors do for people who are in the foreclosure process. Offer a all cash short sale and see if the home owner and bank bites to prevent going through foreclosure. I don't know if it's actually true or not, or how common it is. There is a service that offers this, it's called "Craigslist" and "Facebook groups."
- mdn0420 8y agoDirect mail marketing is a popular strategy in the real estate investing world. You can pull lists of properties+owners and filter by various criteria. Foreclosures or absentee owners are some pretty common ones.
- the_mitsuhiko 8y agoA friend bought a house by putting an ad on the wall at a nearby store. An old lady sold it to them who does not use the internet.
- ssharp 8y ago> We thought about sending letters to see if somebody wanted to sell to us without going the realtor route, but we never did. We actually just bought a house doing this exact thing. There was one particular area that only had about 30 houses in it and they don't come up for sale that much. Since we really wanted to move this year, we sent letters to the houses we'd want in that area. To our surprise, out of the dozen or so letters we sent, four people responded that they were considering selling and a few others still replied thanking us for the letter but weren't going to sell. As long as you are willing to be flexible with move date, this works out great for both sides. The sellers avoid agent fees, which at 5 or 6% can be significant, and the annoyances of showings and open houses. It also gives the sellers certainty of sale so when they go to buy another house, they don't have to deal with contingency offers.
- newfoundglory 8y ago> It also gives the sellers certainty of sale so when they go to buy another house, they don't have to deal with contingency offers. A sale isn’t certain until it’s closed, so unless you are suggesting a sale and lease-back arrangement, it doesn’t really change the sellers situation.
- ssharp 8y agoYou can work out a lease-back for 60 days on most mortgages and some mortgages don't have any leasing restrictions. I'd say some lease-back would happen in this type of arrangement the vast majority of times.
- deleted 8y ago[deleted]
- roel_v 8y agoI get letters like this sometimes (people looking to buy either in our area or specifically our house). This only works when you personalize your letter to the specific house, and sell yourself - i.e. not send a generic 'call me if you want to sell', because then people will assume you're a realtor. I don't think this can be made into a service - it only works when you're clearly not a business and when you can show that you've put in the effort.
- tbihl 8y agoAnd any attempt to turn it into a business will probably only set the bar higher for doing it in earnest.
- lostlogin 8y ago> We thought about sending letters to see if somebody wanted to sell to us without going the realtor route. My parent sold a place that they had after a letter was put in their letter box, and we were on the brink of doing this when we were looking for a place. Before we did I walked into work and said “anyone know of a place for sale in xxx that would be interested in a private sale?” Someone did, and we bought it. No real estate agents involved.
- chasedehan 8y agoI know a number of different people who have done this and purchased homes. They were all in areas where houses rarely go up for sale. I do like the idea of targeting people through Facebook although I feel like the physical letter would pull more at the heart strings