I’m looking for a house in a very specific neighborhood - it’s got maybe 100-200 houses so it isn’t small, but of course volume is low with such a small geographic area.
Has anyone been in this situation before - is there anything that can be done aside from waiting for new listings in the neighborhood? Is it worth contacting the owners of rental listings to try to find someone who would sell? Any other ways to find potential sellers that may be on the fence? I willing to pay a small premium…
Does the neighborhood have a Facebook group? If so they might let you join and you can start getting some inside info as to people who plan to sell
Unfortunately no but its a good idea.
Many times, there are real estate agents that will sell a lot of listing in a specific area. If there’s an agent like that, co tact the agent to see if they have any clients that are looking to sell. Many times, the real estate listing for a house will have the seller and buyer agent info. Flip through a few of the houses in the area to see if a name always pops up. It’s useful to do this on Zillow because you can literally click house to house instead of entering addresses.
Do you know someone who lives in the neighborhood? i let some friends know when i see activity (people moving out, doing major cleanup, a coming soon sign) and a couple of them have gone to those houses before they were listed and struck a deal (having to overpay a bit to keep it from going for sale).
Unfortunately I don’t, but that’s an interesting idea. And yeah, I’m totally ok with overpaying a bit if we can nab something pre-market. Seems like a deal someone could benefit from since they can avoid the rigamarole with listing a home.
Go and make flyers or copies of a personal letter seeking to buy and/or go knocking on doors. That is essentially how my hardworking realtor from out of the area found my unlisted home that I needed for a 1031 exchange.
Look on Zillow and find the agents doing the most business in that area
Hire a great buyers agent who can send you off market/private network and TAN listings.