Had a leaflet come through my door that said nothing except “I’m looking to buy a home in your area. If you’re interested in selling your house please call XYZ”
Was literally just a mobile number. No name, no agency, nada.
Very strange.
Bit of a non story
We asked an estate agent to give us an idea of price last year. We are in a place where most houses are sold immediately. We were kind of thinking about maybe moving, but probably not. We then got five calls a day (I kid you not) every day. Apparently they had buyers willing to pay at over the asking price for a quick sale. Madness. The calls stopped when we told the rabid cunts we’d go with a rival agency if we got one more call from them.
But these are not “secret sales” This is just people trying to skip the queue and paying for the privilege. When the housing market craters, and it is looking increasingly likely it will, there will be more sellers than buyers and this will vanish.
Can’t wait for this to all pop then spend the rest of my working life paying taxes to bail these people out.
Well, when ordinary folk are in competition with hedgefunds, banks and other conglomerates, then this type of market is bound to prevail.
Somewhere along the line these vastly rich entities will collude, and all at once pull the plug. Leaving the ordinary folk with a giant millstone around their neck. The banks themselves have already been promised by our tory ‘government’ that any drop up to 20% will be subsidised by the taxpayer. Yes, you and me. Once the banks etc allow the drop to reach just above 20% they will buy back in: leave it a while, raise the price a little, then guess what?
Eventually, they will buy back in ‘for real’. They will be able to buy more properties, for less money.
If you think we are being squeezed now, this is nothing compared with what is to come….
Anyone who sells off market in a hot market is a moron.
[deleted]
My house was bought before any listing had been posted. Just pure luck but I imagine being friendly with an estate agent might get you an early peek. Listings are not trivial to draw up. Depends if the seller wants a bidding frenzy or not.
after my dad died my mum bought a house this way. She heard a colleague had also died and she approached his widow (who wanted rid asap)
Done, dusted and no stress for either widow.
And most are corporates.
At this point I really don’t care. Anyone buying now is going to get burned hard when the glaringly obvious imminent crash is going to happen. It’s just like 2008 all over again, all these housing headlines are near word for word what it was like that year too. The source of the monetary liquidity in the economy will be different this time round, but the effects will be the same, the money faucet will dry up and house prices will fall off a cliff again.
My local estate agency has been doing this for years. If you don’t sell your house through them too; they refuse to give you any access to new properties.
I was told this by the owner of the company as
‘Pressure’ to force me to sell via them since they ‘get early view of all properties’
I have never, and will never deal with them as a result, but sadly they have the Marge share of houses in the area.
The old adage that “you can tell an estate agent is lying because their mouth is moving” comes to mind.
When we sold our house the estate agent already had buyers lined up before it was listed.
We did this, we had a couple fall through including houses we’d had offers accepted on although some of those were due to feckless sellers. Cost us money in fees as well, so they weren’t exactly on our Christmas card list.
In the end we just rang all of the local estate agents where we wanted to move to, told them what sort of house we wanted (4 bed, detached, close to a train station) and that we were prepared to go over the asking if it warranted it.
We sold our old house and moved into my in laws, so we were desperate to buy.
That evening, one of them called my wife, told her a house exactly fitting our requirements had come up and did we want to go and view it immediately (literally). Photos hadn’t been taken yet, no advert had gone up but did we want to go etc.
We said yes, went at 7pm that evening and the morning after put an offer in 10k over asking (230k on a 220k house) and now we live in it. Advert never hit the website, nobody else even viewed it.
I sold my freehold flat to the lease owner, had agreed with him years ago to do so if I ever wanted to move.
Been happening here in Australia for a few years at least, the estate agents have lists of people and what they’re interested in. The house opposite us three years ago sold without a sign going up, to a couple from Ballarat (about three hours drive away) who hadn’t even seen it – first they’d set foot in the house was when they were moving. Though as I say, they were a couple and for some reason wanted a five bedroom house.
We had an estate agent value our house recently, he told us if we wanted to sell he has a buyer lined up that will buy it without even a viewing – literally just going off photos and a description.
That was a couple months ago, it’s shot up another £10K or so since then.
This has been the thing for decades. We bought 12 years ago and when searching a few of the Estate Agents had a subscription service that you could join so they would send you details of properties before they appeared on websites or even in their window. Some of them allowed viewings before the agent had even photographed the property themselves.
Its most likely the same now. Any house on Rightmove or Zoopla I just assume is there because it hasn’t been desirable enough to get snapped up.
18 comments
Had a leaflet come through my door that said nothing except “I’m looking to buy a home in your area. If you’re interested in selling your house please call XYZ”
Was literally just a mobile number. No name, no agency, nada.
Very strange.
Bit of a non story
We asked an estate agent to give us an idea of price last year. We are in a place where most houses are sold immediately. We were kind of thinking about maybe moving, but probably not. We then got five calls a day (I kid you not) every day. Apparently they had buyers willing to pay at over the asking price for a quick sale. Madness. The calls stopped when we told the rabid cunts we’d go with a rival agency if we got one more call from them.
But these are not “secret sales” This is just people trying to skip the queue and paying for the privilege. When the housing market craters, and it is looking increasingly likely it will, there will be more sellers than buyers and this will vanish.
Can’t wait for this to all pop then spend the rest of my working life paying taxes to bail these people out.
Well, when ordinary folk are in competition with hedgefunds, banks and other conglomerates, then this type of market is bound to prevail.
Somewhere along the line these vastly rich entities will collude, and all at once pull the plug. Leaving the ordinary folk with a giant millstone around their neck. The banks themselves have already been promised by our tory ‘government’ that any drop up to 20% will be subsidised by the taxpayer. Yes, you and me. Once the banks etc allow the drop to reach just above 20% they will buy back in: leave it a while, raise the price a little, then guess what?
Eventually, they will buy back in ‘for real’. They will be able to buy more properties, for less money.
If you think we are being squeezed now, this is nothing compared with what is to come….
Anyone who sells off market in a hot market is a moron.
[deleted]
My house was bought before any listing had been posted. Just pure luck but I imagine being friendly with an estate agent might get you an early peek. Listings are not trivial to draw up. Depends if the seller wants a bidding frenzy or not.
after my dad died my mum bought a house this way. She heard a colleague had also died and she approached his widow (who wanted rid asap)
Done, dusted and no stress for either widow.
And most are corporates.
At this point I really don’t care. Anyone buying now is going to get burned hard when the glaringly obvious imminent crash is going to happen. It’s just like 2008 all over again, all these housing headlines are near word for word what it was like that year too. The source of the monetary liquidity in the economy will be different this time round, but the effects will be the same, the money faucet will dry up and house prices will fall off a cliff again.
My local estate agency has been doing this for years. If you don’t sell your house through them too; they refuse to give you any access to new properties.
I was told this by the owner of the company as
‘Pressure’ to force me to sell via them since they ‘get early view of all properties’
I have never, and will never deal with them as a result, but sadly they have the Marge share of houses in the area.
The old adage that “you can tell an estate agent is lying because their mouth is moving” comes to mind.
When we sold our house the estate agent already had buyers lined up before it was listed.
We did this, we had a couple fall through including houses we’d had offers accepted on although some of those were due to feckless sellers. Cost us money in fees as well, so they weren’t exactly on our Christmas card list.
In the end we just rang all of the local estate agents where we wanted to move to, told them what sort of house we wanted (4 bed, detached, close to a train station) and that we were prepared to go over the asking if it warranted it.
We sold our old house and moved into my in laws, so we were desperate to buy.
That evening, one of them called my wife, told her a house exactly fitting our requirements had come up and did we want to go and view it immediately (literally). Photos hadn’t been taken yet, no advert had gone up but did we want to go etc.
We said yes, went at 7pm that evening and the morning after put an offer in 10k over asking (230k on a 220k house) and now we live in it. Advert never hit the website, nobody else even viewed it.
I sold my freehold flat to the lease owner, had agreed with him years ago to do so if I ever wanted to move.
Been happening here in Australia for a few years at least, the estate agents have lists of people and what they’re interested in. The house opposite us three years ago sold without a sign going up, to a couple from Ballarat (about three hours drive away) who hadn’t even seen it – first they’d set foot in the house was when they were moving. Though as I say, they were a couple and for some reason wanted a five bedroom house.
We had an estate agent value our house recently, he told us if we wanted to sell he has a buyer lined up that will buy it without even a viewing – literally just going off photos and a description.
That was a couple months ago, it’s shot up another £10K or so since then.
This has been the thing for decades. We bought 12 years ago and when searching a few of the Estate Agents had a subscription service that you could join so they would send you details of properties before they appeared on websites or even in their window. Some of them allowed viewings before the agent had even photographed the property themselves.
Its most likely the same now. Any house on Rightmove or Zoopla I just assume is there because it hasn’t been desirable enough to get snapped up.