How to buy an off-market house in the Netherlands (without a buying agent)

I am Jiri, an estate agent in Maastricht. A good share of the houses I have sold already had a buyer before I had taken a single photograph, because someone had written to the owner months earlier. If you are an expat looking for a house here, you have probably been told that the only way to reach those homes is to hire a buying agent. That is not true, and below I explain how it actually works.

What off-market means in the Netherlands

Funda is the website where nearly every Dutch home for sale is advertised. Off-market, or "stille verkoop" (silent sale), means a home is sold without ever appearing there. The owner has given a selling agent the job, but asked for no photos online and no sign in the garden, so the agent calls the people in his own phone: buyers who registered with him, colleagues who have a client, sometimes the neighbours. Legally there is no difference from a public sale; the only difference is who knew about it.

There is also a stage before the silent sale, and it matters more. For months, sometimes years, an owner thinks about moving and tells nobody. If your letter is in their drawer during that period, you are the first person they call.

Why it exists

Sellers who ask me for a silent sale mostly want peace. They dread twenty viewings in one week, pictures of their bedroom on the internet, and the whole street knowing that something is going on. Speed is the second reason: a silent sale can be done in a week with a buyer the agent already trusts.

It is common in sought-after neighbourhoods, which are the same ones expats look at: Oud-West in Amsterdam, Wittevrouwen in Utrecht, Statenkwartier in The Hague. There is no conspiracy behind it. In those streets an agent knows he can find a buyer without advertising, so he does.

Route one: get into the local agents' phones

Here is a misunderstanding I hear from expats every month: that without an aankoopmakelaar, a buying agent who works for you, you cannot view or bid. The selling agent works for the seller, and every offer he receives he must present to the seller, whoever it comes from. Turning away a serious buyer is against his own interest.

So find the three to five agents whose boards you see in the streets you like, and email each of them. Keep it short, because they read it between two appointments. Say who you are buying with, which streets you are looking in, what kind of home, and your maximum budget. Say that you have already spoken to a mortgage adviser and up to which amount, that you can view at short notice including on weekdays, and that you decide quickly. Then ask in so many words whether they will put you on their list for homes that are not yet on Funda. Call a week later, and repeat every few months, because these lists go stale.

I will not pretend every agent treats you like the buying agent he has had coffee with for ten years. But a buyer with the finance arranged who can come tomorrow is just as valuable to me.

Route two: write to the owners directly

The second route goes one step further back, to the owner before any agent is involved. You choose the streets where you want to live, pick ten to thirty houses that would suit you, and write each owner a personal letter: who you are, why this house, and that you would like to hear from them if they ever consider selling. No price and no deadline. You are not making an offer; you are leaving your name in a drawer.

You do not need the owner's name. A letter addressed to "Aan de bewoner(s) van" (to the resident or residents of) plus the street and house number arrives like any other post, and tenants usually pass it on. If you want the name anyway, the Kadaster, the Dutch land registry, is public: an extract for one address costs a few euros online. The privacy rules target the systematic collection and reuse of personal data; one personal letter from a private buyer is ordinary post. The "nee/nee" sticker on some letterboxes refuses unaddressed printed matter, not a letter with the address on it.

What to put in that letter, in English and in Dutch, is in the letter template for a Dutch homeowner. I built DoorLetter for this part, because as a selling agent I heard too often that there had been "a note from someone" and it had been lost. The first letter is free, printed and delivered by PostNL; after that each letter is printed and delivered by PostNL, and every letter carries a code the owner can use to reply to you anonymously, also a year later. The details are on the page about how it works.

Language, and the reputation you inherit

Dutch is better received, especially by older owners, but a short and polite English letter works in most cities; in Amsterdam, Utrecht, The Hague and Leiden nobody is surprised by it. If you can, send both: English on one side and a short Dutch version on the other. Say in one line that you are an expat buying a home to live in, not an investor.

That last sentence is not decoration. In many streets the owners have already received letters from investors and quick-buy companies, printed in bulk, sometimes with an offer well under market value, and yours lands in that same letterbox. Your first paragraph has to do what an investor cannot: show a real person with a real reason for this particular house.

What happens after a yes

An owner who replies is almost always cautious: "we have not decided anything, but tell us more." Go there, listen more than you talk, and ask what they would need to make the step, such as a completion date that fits their next home or certainty about your finance. Talk about money only when they start.

Once you agree in principle, the formal route is the ordinary Dutch one, minus the bidding war. An independent taxateur (a registered valuer) values the house; you need that report for your mortgage anyway, and it protects both sides from a price plucked from the air. Your mortgage adviser then finalises the loan, which for expats can take a little longer, so start that conversation before you write your letters. A notaris (a civil-law notary, who in the Netherlands handles property transfers) draws up the koopovereenkomst, the written purchase agreement. Only when both of you have signed it is there a sale, and as a private buyer you then have three days of bedenktijd, a statutory cooling-off period in which you may still withdraw without giving a reason. Everything before those signatures, including a verbal "yes", binds nobody. You pay the notary and the transfer tax; the Dutch call this kosten koper, "costs for the buyer", the k.k. after almost every asking price.

When a buying agent is still worth it

I would be lying if I said never, and I am an agent myself. If you are buying from abroad and have not yet lived here, a good buying agent knows what a street is worth and where the water stands after rain, and that is hard to replace in a few weekends. If your job does not allow a viewing at eleven on a Tuesday, you are buying time. And if negotiating in a language that is not yours keeps you awake, many agents offer a deelopdracht, a partial mandate for only the negotiation or only the contract, at a fixed fee. The full service usually runs to a few thousand euros; ask for the exact figure before you sign anything.

What a buying agent cannot do better than you is the letter. His is a standard text; yours is true. One serious reply per ten to thirty letters is a realistic expectation, sometimes a year after you sent them. That is slow compared with a bid on Funda, and it is also the only route where you are not outbidding forty others.