I’m Jiri, an estate agent in Maastricht. I built DoorLetter because for years I kept seeing the same thing happen, and it would not let go of me.

At almost every house I was asked to sell, the owners said the same thing: “We’ve had a few notes through the door from people who were interested.” When I asked whether they still had them, they were gone. Or the phone number was no longer in the phone. Or it was a card somewhere in a drawer, without a name.

Those people were often the best buyers there were. They knew the street, their financing was in place, they wanted exactly this house. And still they never found out it was coming up for sale, because their note had been lost among the flyers.

Meanwhile, on the other side, I see buyers who have been searching for two years, outbidding every week and losing every week. On Funda you queue with forty others. In a letterbox you stand alone.

The homes I most enjoyed selling often never appeared on Funda. The owner already knew someone, or someone had already come forward. Agents have done this for their own clients for years: a call, a note, a card through the door. I think an ordinary buyer should be able to do the same, without a buying agent costing a few thousand euros.

So that is DoorLetter. You choose the address where you would like to live, write in your own words why, and I make sure that letter is printed and delivered properly. The owner reads it, keeps it, and can reach you with a single code, even a year from now.

Not every owner replies. Most don’t. But the letter you never send certainly gets no answer.