How I Bought £5k Below My Own Offer by Following Up for Months| Property Filter

I'm Matt. I'm from Southeast London. I've been on Propertyfilter for about a year now. I've been interested in property for maybe 18 months. Just been interested in property, been trying to find like a strategy that really suits my personal circumstances and goals. So that's taken a long time to really understand what I wanted to get out of property. And then from there I've then been able to implement those strategies by using Propertyfilter. Yeah.

And which strategy kind of did you end up nailing down in the end?

So at the moment I'm focusing focusing on short leases in and around my sort of area around Southeast London. Yeah, so I'm looking to source, buy short lease flats in and around Southeast London. Yeah, basically just using Propertyfilter to identify short leases, mainly like Victorian conversions of houses. And then if we can do a refurb and extend the lease and then either refinance and keep or do an assisted sale and put it back on the market to another buyer. That's the ideal situation.

And I guess prior to using Propertyfilter, what challenges would you say you were kind of experiencing?

I guess just seeing the same stuff on Rightmove and the other portals, scrolling through the same, same properties day after day and trying to make a mental note on what you haven't looked at. It was also difficult to really spot the motivation and, and see whether a property is genuinely new to the market or has been listed with other agents. Previously using Property Filter and just having all that data right in front of you to see how motivated the seller really is, is a game changer really. So yeah, it's just saved so much time just being able to make a decision on a property instantly. If the asking price is just way too high or if the asking price hasn't been reduced, I probably won't even bother spending more than 10 seconds looking at it because it's just not worth it. So then I'll just wait until the next change and then as soon as it is reduced, then it will start to be worth, worth looking at a little bit deeper. Yeah, definitely. And like, also you can set a filter to say you don't want to see anything below, for instance, 20% below the average asking price of the postcode. Maybe there could be one where, you know, the price hasn't been reduced, but it's already significantly below. So on that occasion, I probably would have a look at it.

So when you first started using Propertyfilter, however long that I can't remember exactly how long ago. I don't know if you started exactly when we first met, but yeah, I guess when you first started with Propertyfilter, what, or maybe before, like what hesitations did you have about the platform?

Well, I think a common misconception is like you're just going to log onto it and like deals are just going to like be there ready for you to cherry pick and, you know, like just put in your shopping basket and do the deal. I was kind of thinking, oh, like that seems too good to be true. But then when you start using it, and like having been part of the community, you realize that you've actually got to make the deal. The data's there to indicate whether a good deal could be made or not. Yeah, at first I was just thinking like, how are these deals just going to be like existing in this platform? But then once you use it, you realize you've got to use the data, but you've got to make the deal if you can, you know, follow the blueprint.

Yeah, I guess what Guillaume says about how Deals are made, not found. And I can certainly relate to what you said there about some people think that it's just kind of like a, it's a done-for-you service, but ultimately Property Filter's just about helping you guys do your job.

Yeah, definitely. It just lays out all the data that you need to make an informed decision. There's not really an excuse to kind of not know what's going on with the property. And then if even if you can't work it out, like the phone number's there, you can just phone the agent. Or if you don't want to do that, you can just send the letter. It's like all bases are covered. I feel like it's easy to make excuses when you're not seeing much progress at the start, but everything's there for you. You've just got to use it and take action.

Yeah, no, 100%. I guess in terms of yourself, what impact has the platform kind of had on yourself and your business?

Mainly just confidence. So when I pick up a phone and speak to an agent, I feel confident that I know what's happening with this property. I know how long it's been on the market for. I know how many agents have had it. I know what it was originally purchased for. I can see the lease length. I've got all the data there. So just, I feel a lot more informed using it as opposed to just flicking through some photos on Rightmove and just noticing the asking price. I feel like I've got a full picture of everything of what's going on with the property and the surrounding areas. Yeah, using the area data, the comparables in the area, it just allows you to come to outcomes quicker. I know that if the property was renovated to a certain standard, I've got a better idea of what it's probably going to be worth, as opposed to having to do things a bit more manually. I like having the comparables all in one place. I like having direct-to-vendor letter campaigns sent out scheduled in advance, because that's one thing I noticed that I was sending out letter campaigns and then forgetting the follow-up. So just having that been taken care of without me having to do anything is nice because yeah, it's all about the follow-up. I sent a letter to a short lease flat in Surrey, just, well, I'd sent about 2 or 3 off the, through the campaign manager. I proposed that to him as well as a low cash offer, but he rejected both because he wanted to try and sell the property on the open market. I was like, okay, that's fine. Added it to the pipeline, set reminders to follow up every couple of weeks, and would just send him a text every few weeks just to check in, see how he's doing, even though I could see online that it hadn't sold. After a couple of months, after I followed up, he actually replied to me, because a lot of the time through when I was texting him, he wouldn't reply. But I was like, I'm still going to text him. And then he replied saying, oh, does your original cash offer still stand? So yeah, we agreed. We actually agreed a price 5K lower than my original low cash offer because he said if you can do it in a couple of weeks, I'll accept lower. Yeah, 100%. Like, I just embrace the rejection. It's like, who cares? As long as you're not being rude to anyone, it's fine. Like, until they say please stop messaging me, I'll probably carry on. I think it's for people who are action takers, who actually want to use the data but then work with the data to then make deals, as opposed to people who just are going to log on and just expect the deals to come to them. I think it's for people who, who want to make deals happen as opposed to people who want to— who expect deals to come to them.