How To Find An Off Market Property
Off market properties have been hitting the UK news outlets – but how do you find an off market property? Before we get into the how, let’s have a closer look at what is an off market property and why it matters:
What Is An Off Market Property?
An off market home is not available to the traditional property market – it is not listed on property websites, agents don’t showcase it to the public, it isn’t available on auction. You can’t find an off market property using mainstream property searches and websites.
Typically you will have to go directly to the seller for an off market property. There won’t be much competition, and usually the viewings are limited to a small number of people. Sometimes, only a small amount of people know about these secret homes! These homes are sold by the owner or their partnered agency, or a developer, and aim to achieve a quick, private sale. There’s nothing ‘wrong’ with the homes – people have individual reasons for selling off market, for example they don’t want the wider public and their neighbours know they’re moving; they might not be ready to move just yet and want to see the demand and interest for their home; the home could belong to a high profile seller who needs privacy; among many others.
Why Buy Off Market?
Now that we know what off market properties are, why would you want to buy off market? Well, there are several reasons why buying homes off market is appealing:
- There is less competition. Because the homes aren’t widely available, you’re not stressed or panicked because you’re scared 5 other people might be making an offer before you.
- You can negotiate directly with the seller – which reduces waiting times from having a third party deal with the sale.
- Your offer is more likely to be accepted. Because the costs with off market homes are lower in terms of marketing the home, the seller is more likely to accept an offer.
You can read more about why we think buying homes off market is awesome in our blog: Why Buy A House Off-Market?
How To Find An Off Market Property
Houso – Off Market Properties For Sale
You’re incredibly interested in off market properties – we can sense the excitement! But how do you find them? First of all, we would like to point the finger directly at us: Houso was designed by a property developer to focus on off market properties and provide a user friendly platform for both sellers and buyers to access off market homes. We strongly believe that if more people were able to line up buyers in the wings before moving, the chain that is associated with buying homes would be less stressful.
Houso is a free app for selling and buying homes. It allows sellers to upload their properties off market, and buyers can browse on the market properties for free, or upgrade for a small fee to have access to secret homes in their desired location. You can message sellers directly through the app, book viewings, make offers, and upload/receive documents related to property all in one place.
You can start browsing off-market homes on Houso today – download for Android or Apple!
Word Of Mouth
The next step you can take to finding off market homes is talk to people – start putting the news out there that you are looking at property, and does anyone know of anyone selling their property privately? Build a network – contact local developers and agents, and let them know your intentions of searching off market.
Untraditional Online Property Sales
You could also have a look at platforms like Facebook or Gumtree to find properties which are being sold by owner – however this is not truly off market as there will be others looking at the same properties. However, selling properties privately on social media is not a traditional way of marketing so the competition and numbers of people looking will be significantly less than those using traditional property searches.