Odd
Something really weird happened yesterday. Helen and I returned as usual to our small, yet comfortable abode in Emerson Valley, MK. Waiting on the doormat was a letter from the owners of property we put on offer on way back in August. It went something like:
“Dear Helen and Guy, you put in an offer on our house in August but our house fell through and we subsequently took it off the market. We have now found a house with no chain that we want to buy and would like to give you first refusal on our house (if you are still looking). Of course house prices have risen but we can chat about that, here’s our number…” (general gist, not quoted exactly).
OK, that in itself isn’t too weird as it makes sense to sell privately as you save on the estate agents fee. However, we didn’t actually realise they new THAT MUCH about us. They obviously had found out our names and where we live. The name part is easy – we gave them our first names when they gave us the guided tour. How they found out our address is the weird bit. They didn’t have our sir-names as far as I was aware and the address on the envelope was spelt wrong, implying that the address was given over the phone. In fact the address simply was: Helen & Guy, (street name) – no number, no postcode, no sir names. The letter was hand-delivered and a pretty good stab in the dark. Good guess aided by the fact that our house is the only one in the street with a ‘For Sale’ board outside.
So how did they get our details? The thought has crossed my mind that this site may have been some help. Search Google for ‘Bushey Close‘ and the top result is the photos section of GuyWeb. So they may have been searching and stumbled upon our site and they used that as a means to contact us. How? Well, we’ve been advertising our house For Sale on here for months now. So, they could at least determine the street we live on. But I’m not so sure, seems like too much of a coincidence to me. But then, the photos section does give the impression that we’re really interested in the site. Terms like ‘house of our dreams’ are a good indication. So it could be that. Or they could have phoned up the estate agent and gone – “Hi there, remember those people who wanted to buy our house in August, well can we have their details please (as we want to approach them without your help and cut you lot out of the equation). Yeah I know, just as unlikely.
So I’m going to phone them up and find out everything tonight. You will be enlightened tomorrow. Onto the question of whether we still want the property or not, well, it is a thoroughly nice semi in Buckingham. The real-wood eucalyptus flooring is lush, conservatory, nice area, garage etc. But how much has the price inflated? Time will tell.
Tags: Film
I suspect they have gone through the estate agents. Remember it is very easily to bluff people. They could have said something like we found a purse, we think it belongs to that lovely couple who came to see the house and we would like to return it, or, when they came to the house we loved them so much we arranged to have a drink in the new year and we have misplaced their address. I don’t think it will be all that sinister. OR, they might be psycho stalkers in which case why not contact the MK Citizen with your story and give us all a good read!!
January 8th, 2003 at 2:08 pm