I love this new change – the sellers get to choose whether or not they get to receive love letters from buyers with their offers. Buyers should be given every chance to compete for the win, and submitting an introductory letter with photos of the kids and dog is a great way to influence the outcome.
Love letters work!
Sellers like to know about the buyers because they want their family homestead to go to someone who will adore it like they do. In a close race, a strong love letter can make the difference between winning and losing! I recommend that every buyer submit one.
Listing brokers, particularly Redfin, get all weird about discrimination and they refuse to give sellers any love letters submitted. But sellers should be making that decision, not the broker. Everyone is googling everyone anyway – there are no secrets!
Be careful if you are a mixed-race couple or minority though. I’ve had it happen twice when my minority buyers offered on multi-million-dollar homes. They offered the exact same price as what the sellers took, but we didn’t get a counter. In both cases, the listing agent had met my buyers. Did they influence the outcome? Why else would they just kick us to the curb when offering the same?
