I've never heard that term used in relation to shopping for a home, but I don't see any reason why those people who have had listings expire wouldn't be interested in seeing you. We live in a resort area where the real estate market has died, and there are many, many homes that have been on the market for months to years. Sellers are anxious to sell, and looking at all offers. The home next door to ours which was originally listed for $890,000 ended up selling for $260,000 after a year and a half on the market - so the bargains are there.

I agree that I wouldn't ask the realtor to write the note for you, if you can work outside of the realtor on expired properties you can save some money.

Your agent can call up an expired listing and check with the previous seller's agent to see if the person is interested in selling.

In my neighborhood, sometimes folks will randomly stop and ask the owner of a particulary nice house if they are interested in selling anytime soon and if so that they are interested.( first class public schools). I have also heard of people receiving letters out of the blue from folks that like their house and would love to buy it.
This has been happening long before the bubble burst, so I think it would be well worth your time and a stamp.
I thought this was a fairly common practice. Go for it!

I'd give it a shot, worst they can do is say no.

But be careful about the deal with your realtor. A licensed realtor here or in Buying/Selling homes forum could better answer this technicality. But we were told many years ago by a friend in real estate that if you're working with an agent there are certain 'outside' circumstances where they can collect their commission. For instance, say they show you a house, or allow you access to a listing that general public wouldn't be able to see. You don't buy the house for whatever reason, then the MLS listing expires. If you pursue that house after listing expires, the agent you were working with at the time the listing was active can collect commissions. I believe it was for a period of up to 6, maybe 12 months after listing expired. (Sorry, can't recall it was so long ago.)

There might be even more to it, or with the advent of technology and ready access to listings anywhere it might have changed. But it would be worth covering that base, imho. Those commissions can amount to a big chunk of change.

Moving to a resort area? Sounds exciting! I wouldn't hesitate to inquire about any house you may be interested in purchasing. The owners can ignore your inquiry if they aren't interested. In California, it isn't uncommon to receive these kinds of letters. Over the years, we've received several.

Tell us about the area!

But we were told many years ago by a friend in real estate that if you're working with an agent there are certain 'outside' circumstances where they can collect their commission

If you sign a buyer's agency agreement, then yes, you could owe commission in those circumstances. However, very few people ever sign exclusive buyer agency agreements. Commissions are usually paid by the sellers.

Of course this would vary from state to state, but in our state, if you've signed a Buyer's Agreement with your Realtor they would be entitled to a commission, unless of course it's stated otherwise in the buyers agreement. If you have not signed a Buyers Agreement with your Realtor, it's more of a slippery slope. Either way, you should be up front with him/her, especially if they have spent a lot of time trying to help you find the right property. After all, shouldn't she/he be compensated for their time?

I've actually been on the other side of a similar transaction. In 1993 and 1994 we had our house listed three times for 3 months at a time without success. Much like it is today, the real estate market was awful where we lived, and with two young children three months at a time was all that I could handle. A few months after our third listing expired we received a call from an agent who said that she was working with a couple who wanted to live in our subdivision but couldn't find anything on the market that they liked. We gave her a one day listing to show the house. She showed it, it sold and everyone was happy. The agent agreed to and accepted a 1/2 commission BTW.

Good luck to you with your search. Sometimes houses that don't "have" to be sold go off the market during a depressed housing marke because the hassle factor and stress of having a house perfect all the time are so difficult.

I'll sure that I'll still be dreaming of living in a resort town long after you have found you dream home and moved in! Good luck and make sure you keep us posted, OK?

I love you guys! If a person posted on conversations and tried to cover every potential question they might receive about their post, they'd have to write a novel.

In the interest of brevity, I did not post much about our agent, our relationship with our agent, where we live or other things that I didn't think were related to my question. But since it is the GW, I should have known better. Here goes:

Yes, we have an agent.
No, we did not sign agreement.
No, she has not provided me with any information about the expired listings that I am interested in.
Yes, we do plan on generously compensating her for her time if we end up buying a home directly from an owner.
Yes, we will tell her if we are contacting owners directly.
We will be living in St. Simons Island, GA.
We have sold our previous home and are currently living in a rental.
I am 5 foot 6 and about 7 pounds overweight.
I have been married for 24 years.
I like chocolate.
My hair is frizzy.

Thanks for reading my post and taking the time to respond. If you haven't already guessed, I tend to be sarcastic, but I really do appreciate it.

Dee

Here is a link that might be useful: St. Simons Island

Well, look no further, Dee, because I found your new house. You might have to change out the gold colored bathroom fixtures but the rest is entirely livable.
The sun room is to die for and the kitchen is more than doable for fixing your diet meals.

Here is a link that might be useful: Dee's new house on St Simons Island.

golddust - I agree that's the perfect house.

Dee, Of course you know how everyone is on this forum, thorough and thinking of all the angles.

Good to hear you've already thought of them. I would talk to your agent and tell her you want to contact some of these expired listings. If she's not busy, she may be more than willing to help you out and be compensated if the deal goes through.

We've thought about contacting a seller of a house that we looked at over a year ago. It never sold and they just took it off the market. They wanted alot of money for the house, and probably still do, but we're thinking about contacting them. So, go for it and let me know how it goes!

If the real estate forum hasn't lost it's history, do a search there for this; I know there are posts.

As a home owner, I would rather have a card type (size of small thank you card with letter inside) piece of mail come then what looks like a letter which I may toss. I also would not want one that had a Realtor stamp on the outside because I surely would toss it. When we had our house on the market, you wouldn't believe how much agent spam we got saying that they had someone that would buy our house; when I called, they were fishing for the listing because they knew it expired or was going to.

You can bring your agent in if you do make the deal or to see the house (personally I'd bring them the 2nd time if I was really interested). As was mentioned, either your agent or the home owners agent may get a cut.

Dee, what a beautiful area that is! Love your sense of humor! Too funny!

Upon looking at Dee's new house photos again, I have decided the bathroom fixtures are NOT gold, so there would be an immediate savings, right off the bat.

St. Simons is a lovely area, our family used to have a home there and always enjoyed the time there. We haven't visited in ages, but DH's cousin still lives there, only a stone's throw from the beach.

Best of luck to you, Dee, we need to all send you a box of chocolates as a house warming gift!!!

I think I like ya Dee...come move by us LOL

I both sold a home from a fishing trip :) and bought one the same way. The home we sold was a townhouse with lake front access. An agent had a client interested in our other townhouse (actually on the lake) and he sent us a personal letter (not on stationary which I'd have tossed before reading). It was hand written and very nice so I called back with a polite "no" but told him that I had another which was going to to on the market in a few months though again, not on the lake. They asked to see it and I sold it that day, never listing it formally. We settled on a very low fee (since I hadn't engaged him) which was a benefit to the client and to us. It was a nice easy sale which took place in a down market, no money lost on the deal at all (small profit and we had use of the place while remodeling our other house which saved us thousands).

Our victorian (we purchased in Nov 09) was never on the market. We looked at most of the big places in town and had negotiated for another one here for over a year. The owner was and is a stuborn old puke who will not receive what she expected her home to sell for. But I will say, we were willing to pay it in the end because we wanted the home and it was the best available. DH said "can you just call the James house?" (we'd had our realtor contact them a year before and she was politely rebuffed). To humor him I did and we bought the home 3 days later over coffee in a little local shop where i used to buy penny candy as a child. :) No agents involved. I appologized to our agent, but as a professional she said "it happens" and she wouldn't take a dime (as a professional would always do). And she's right, it does happen, and it's part of her job. We've refered two clients who have purchased since.

Both houses never made a formal listing status. Both sales benefited each party involved and both were friendly sales. I think from now on I'm just going to ask people who have never listed their house if they want to sell verses looking at listed properties LOL So don't limit yourself to listed or formerlly listed....consider anything you like. We've only been here since Nov and I get offers about twice a month. They're not offensive :) We see them as a compliment and always respond politely. The only time I haven't been polite was once at our lake townhouse when a gentleman (I use the term lightly) wearing his shirt open to his waist with gold chains (I kid you not) came in his big pickup and stopped out front to tell me he was damned determined to buy our house for any amount of money. "Everyone has a price". I said our price was one million. He said it would never sell for that...to which I replied, "good cuz it isn't for sale anyhoo" and went in.

So leave the gold chains at home when making inquiries? :oP

I have seen houses that I loved and put a note in their mailbox. Stating that I am not a real estate agent and that I love their house, and have they ever considered selling it. No answer and besides it's against the law to tamper with someone's mailbox. I found that out later.

Love the area your looking in, good luck.

.....Jane

Golddust - Last night we went driving around looking at houses and we were in a fantastic location near the water where the houses are kind of haphazard - behind walls, sited on angles, down alleys, etc. We see a sign near a smallish house and I think, "THAT is a cool house. I wonder if we can afford it?". Then we realize that it is the guest house of the 6 million dollar house that you posted! Oh well. Maybe they will just sell us the guest house? The house and the lot are to die for, btw.

Not only is it not a waste of time, but it's probably your best strategy. Any house you can buy without using an agent is one you can save up to 5% on the cost, maybe more given you won't have as many potential competing buyers (any talk about whether the buyer, seller, or some of both pay commission(s) as ultimately irrelevant, as the seller must the agents' cut into account when calculating their net return from selling their house). You'll catch some sellers who were about to list their properties but haven't yet; you won't have to pay commissions on properties you discovered yourself, you'll open your market to the 25% of sellers who don't use real-estate agents (although some of these do pay to have their properties listed on the MLS).

You may also reach buyers who were on the fence about selling, or not considering it at all, until they received your offer. The latter scenario is especially compelling, being seller's agents often tell their sellers to spend $1,000s fixing up their properties, whitewashing the interior walls with new neutral-color paint, replacing anything deemed "dated" (read: charming original fixtures authentic to the house) with cheap but trendy junk from the big-box stores, throwing in "new" whatever (always bottom-of-the-line appliances or flooring you wouldn't want), etc., and convincing the seller, and some buyers, that the property is now worth $20K more thanks to $3,000 of "improvements" you could have done yourself, and better. They'll "de-clutter" the house making it look bigger and roomier, but you the buyer should look past any furnishing and personal belongings that don't convey anyway. You should be the one increasing "curb appeal" by making minor changes to the landscaping, and buying before this has been done for every other potential buyer to look at, and be willing to pay more for because it looks like a nicer place.

I've seen sellers get two offers, and go with the lower one because it was no- or split-commission rather than full-commission.