sort of MM related: writing a personal letter with offer for a house

kmurphy2131 · January 2016

My husband and I found a house we really like today. This was the first day of showings for the home, and offers are due at 5pm on Tuesday. The open house was packed, but that may or may not indicate that there will be many offers). I would say that the house is very competitively priced. We are likely going to offer asking, but our agent is going to wait until tuesday to help us make that decision. They have a contingency that they need to find a home before the sale, and we are renting (lease up 3/31) and have family to stay with, so we are (I think) a great candidate for that.

My mom suggested writing a letter to go with our offer. I thought that was an HGTV thing, but our agent said that she has had couples do it. Any advice for writing a letter? Have you got a home based on a letter? Or sold someone your home based on a letter?

bmo88 · January 2016

I haven't done it, but I would think you should tell a story of how you can see your family growing in the home. Maybe talk about what you really like about the home, the neighorhood and what it would mean to become part of that community.

Sorry, probably not much help, but just some ideas!

LillibetteV · January 2016

I did it and it got us our dream house! I think the key is to be sincere - our sellers had bought this house as newlyweds, raised their kids, and now we're off to their retirement. As a young couple we basically had the same plan for this house and said that in the letter.

mgarza1231 · January 2016

I have had friends that have done this and even sent a picture of their kids. They still didn't get many houses that they bid on but we live in a very competitive area. In all honesty, if I were selling my house and had multiple offers I would take the highest offer any day of the week. You can always try though, it can't hurt anything.

kmurphy2131 · January 2016

mgarza1231 said:

I have had friends that have done this and even sent a picture of their kids. They still didn't get many houses that they bid on but we live in a very competitive area. In all honesty, if I were selling my house and had multiple offers I would take the highest offer any day of the week. You can always try though, it can't hurt anything.

I would too! Thats why I feel so weird doing this. I would never pick a lower offer just because someone wrote a letter. But I guess if things are close maybe I would? Seems like a small time investment for potential payoff (asking price is a great deal) so it's worth a shot I guess.

abrewer5 · January 2016

In my opinion it can't hurt. The worst they can say is no and accept another offer and you maybe spent 30 minutes writing it... so I say go for it!

jtmh2012 · January 2016

LillibetteV said:

I did it and it got us our dream house! I think the key is to be sincere - our sellers had bought this house as newlyweds, raised their kids, and now we're off to their retirement. As a young couple we basically had the same plan for this house and said that in the letter.

Personally, I think this is probably about the only time the letter writing works out. When I sold our last house, we had no attachment to the place. We sold to whomever had the best out the door offer. But in my opinion the letters work best when you have someone who's spent their life in a house, have an attachment to it, and really wants to sell it to someone who will take great care of it.

hoffse · January 2016

I don't think I would. I would want it to be an open and shut business deal. If I were a seller, I would absolutely not pick a lower offer because of a letter.

I'll be completely honest, I would suggest that you try to keep emotions out of it, at least with your communications to the seller. If I was selling and got a letter like that, I would be pretty sure my potential buyer would want the house badly enough that I wouldn't be willing to negotiate very much or at all. I would probably look to negotiate an as-is clause in the contract if I got a letter like that. If that didn't fly, I would be offering under-market value for things like repairs.

Sending a letter like that really gives the seller all the leverage. If the seller stops and thinks about it rationally... or if they engage in deals for their job or something... they will realize this.

It sounds like I'm in the minority on this though. Maybe I've spent too much time in M&A work and most people wouldn't perceive it the way I do.

EDIT: You are going to lose some serious leverage by offering on the day it went on the market anyway. H and I did the same thing and knew that we weren't going to have much negotiating room because of that. I think a letter would just make it worse. We ultimately did get the sellers to cover about $5K of our closing costs, because they became the desperate ones at the end, and we made it clear that we were very willing to walk. Still, if we had waited it out a little bit we probably could have gotten a lower price for the house. In retrospect, it had a lot of showings but we were the only offer. It was pretty ugly when we bought it.

kmurphy2131 · January 2016

hoffse said:
I don't think I would. I would want it to be an open and shut business deal. If I were a seller, I would absolutely not pick a lower offer because of a letter.

I'll be completely honest, I would suggest that you try to keep emotions out of it, at least with your communications to the seller. If I was selling and got a letter like that, I would be pretty sure my potential buyer would want the house badly enough that I wouldn't be willing to negotiate very much or at all. I would probably look to negotiate an as-is clause in the contract if I got a letter like that. If that didn't fly, I would be offering under-market value for things like repairs.

Sending a letter like that really gives the seller all the leverage. If the seller stops and thinks about it rationally... or if they engage in deals for their job or something... they will realize this.

It sounds like I'm in the minority on this though. Maybe I've spent too much time in M&A work and most people wouldn't perceive it the way I do.

EDIT: You are going to lose some serious leverage by offering on the day it went on the market anyway. H and I did the same thing and knew that we weren't going to have much negotiating room because of that. I think a letter would just make it worse. We ultimately did get the sellers to cover about $5K of our closing costs, because they became the desperate ones at the end, and we made it clear that we were very willing to walk. Still, if we had waited it out a little bit we probably could have gotten a lower price for the house. In retrospect, it had a lot of showings but we were the only offer. It was pretty ugly when we bought it.

I pretty much completely agree with you. I wouldn't sell a house based on a letter. But my mom and the internet seem to think otherwise haha

I'm writing less from an emotional perspective and more from a "here is why we like this town...you have done a great job caring for your home... we are willing to work with the fact that you dont want to sell until you find something to buy and have time to have a delayed closing..." (with more legitimate stipulations about that in the legal documents). I also don't have a strong emotional attachment to the house (which everyone tells me that I'll feel attached to a house when its the right one - but I am way to much of a logical brain to ever feel an attachment to a house, I just do not get attached to things like that) so I'm pretty comfortable walking if I don't like the deal. So if they try and use it as leverage, I'll leave.

I also am not super psyched about offering asking, the day it went on the market. I pushed back a lot with my husband last night. The thing is, the house was listed with "sellers to receive all offers by 1/12 at 5pm" My realtor is not going to put in an offer until tomorrow afternoon, when she knows that someone else has put in an offer. That happens a lot around here, and sometimes the houses are gone in a day, and sometimes its a line to draw people in. My guess is that this house will sell for $20,000 over asking and we won't get it anyway -it's worth at least that. Similar houses in the area sell for that, so I figure if they accept asking, we still got a deal. LIkely they priced the house to start a bidding war though, and I will not get into that.

Erikan73 · January 2016

It couldn't hurt. If they get two bids for the same price and neither party is willing to go higher, the letter may make the difference.

hoffse · January 2016

Yeah that happens here too. We have some friends who successfully got their house into a bidding war with 3 buyers and scored $100K over asking. Beautiful house though.

H and I saw our house the first morning it was on the market, and we heard there were 9 other showings that day. No open house. We scheduled another showing that evening and had a really long lunch while we talked about whether we were willing to pay asking or even above asking. We had been looking for 2 years, and even though the house was ugly we knew the bones were good. More importantly, it was an ideal location, and that's what sold it for us. We offered $10K under asking, and they countered with the asking price. Frankly, we were expecting it, and it was fair.

If your agent is writing in the offer, I might ask and see if she can drop a note about being willing to work with them as they look for their own house. That way they know that you are flexible, but it's coming from official channels. Even if you ARE willing to walk, your sellers aren't going to know that, and writing a letter could indicate that you are emotionally attached, even if you are not.

One thing I'll say is you may be limited with your lender in holding out the deal too long while your sellers look. Honestly that was the thing that finally broke our sellers down in the end. They really REALLY wanted more time to look, and I'm pretty sure they ended up moving to a smaller house than they wanted because they were under contract with us. Our loan rate had a 90-day lock, and our contract gave us 10 days to acquire approval for financing... so we gave them the full 100 days.... but after that we were done. Our lender would have required a pretty big fee to keep our rate in place, and we told the sellers they could either pay the fee to extend the time frame, close the deal with us, or we could walk and get our earnest money back. They couldn't afford option 1, and by then they were too committed for option 3, so they took option 2.

Xstatic3333 · January 2016

@kmurphy2131, you're the Boston area person, right? Sorry if I'm wrong about that. If you're looking in a Boston suburb the market seems so completely insane right now. I know people around here who have had the letter thing work when the seller is an elderly person downsizing who has some attachment to the home, but I agree with PP that it's probably the only time it would make a difference.

If they priced the house to sell and are taking lots of offers right away, I bet it's going to go in a bidding war one way or another. If you really want the house I'd probably go in with your best offer right away, and the letter probably couldn't hurt but might help a little. If you're okay with shooting for a better deal at risking of not getting the house, I think @hoffse's advice is spot-on.

Do you know anything about the seller? When we went to the open house for our home the seller's realtor, who H and I agree was not an especially good realtor, shared lots of details about her that helped us to formulate our offer. He told us that she would be walking away with a lot of money from the sale, and that she had moved across the country and hoped to sell quickly. This information made us feel comfortable asking for closing costs in our initial offer AND asking her to leave the lawn mower. I'm guessing that's an unusual situation, however.

cbee817 · January 2016

We did it for our house- we were up against 3 other couples and were asked to present our best offer. Our real estate agent asked us to write a letter about why we wanted the house. The couple had lived there for over 20 years and it is an older home. We said that they were planning on keeping the integrity of the home and preserve it (which we have). We ended up getting the house and the agent did say that they really liked the letter- made them feel good about selling the home (the husband did not want to leave). We also agreed to a later closing date so that probably helped too.

LillibetteV · January 2016

For what it's worth our realtor said the letter was the difference between us and other similar offers on our house and it didn't hurt our future negotiations the way you might think. After the inspection we were able to negotiate $10k back because of work that needed to be done that wasn't obvious at the open house (such as the ugly kitchen and blue toilet) - at that point they didn't want to have to go through the whole process again and another buyer would have either asked for the same money back or just walked away. A new roof, termite damage repairs, foundation repairs, and electrical issues are no joke and scare the crap out of most people (for a good reason!) They still got over asking price and felt good that the home was going to be well loved - they even left us a bottle of champagne in the fridge with a sweet note wishing up many years of happiness in the house!

We live in a Boston suburb too and yea....prices are crazy. We opted for a fixer upper since we are able to do a lot of work ourselves and the location is amazing.

englishtrish1 · January 2016

I think it depends on who the sellers are, I would see it as manipulative,my DH would be touched but not swayed, but he is a lot more attached to things like houses than I am

short+sassy · January 2016

englishtrish1 said:

I think it depends on who the sellers are, I would see it as manipulative,my DH would be touched but not swayed, but he is a lot more attached to things like houses than I am

I don't think I'd be swayed one way or another by a letter. Probably a, "oh, that's nice." But my H is a super jaded person and he would definitely see it as manipulative. It would probably put a bad taste in his mouth. But he is truly to an extreme when it comes to being suspicious of everything.

Overall, I don't think there is anything wrong with a letter. As some other PPs have mentioned, I would also include...not just why you like the house, but your flexibility with a closing date, since it sounds like that is a factor with the sellers.

kmurphy2131 · January 2016

Thanks everyone.

@Xstatic3333 - yes, we are about 30min outside of Boston in a major commuting town

@cbee817 - the current owners have been there for almost 50 years!! I like the idea about "preserving the home" we would paint/change carpets but have no plans to change anything else so I can honestly say that

@short+sassy - I am kind of more like your husband, but I also think that may be outside of the norm. I definitely am going to emphasize the closing date piece.

The current owners are the original owners, and have been there for almost 50 years. I personally would not be swayed by a letter, but if I had been in a house for that long, and had two similar offers but one was more personal I would probably go with that. So, I am going to write it without getting too "emotional" behind it (not hard for me! haha) and we will see what happens.

julieanne912 · January 2016

Alright, I'm a bit late to the party here, but here's my perspective coming from someone who has been "in the business". I was an active realtor up until about a year ago.

Since your owners are the original owners, I think a letter can definitely help you. If they were investors or something like that, don't bother, but since they've been there for 50 years, they most likely have some heavy attachment to the home.

Most people won't take a significantly lower offer because of a letter, but if they're trying to decide between similar offers, I think a letter will definitely help (again, in this case, because of who the seller is).

The Denver real estate market is nuts, and I often received multiple letters with pictures, etc. I've heard some real sob stories, and those tend to make the owners roll their eyes, so don't tell them anything sad. (Like I had one couple tell us the entire history of their difficulty TTCing... don't do that).

An example of where it worked: Had a listing, with two almost identical offers... similar financing, similar closing dates, similar price etc. One sent us a video of the family telling the sellers how much they liked the house, and that they noticed that the seller was a hunter. Then, they had their little 9 year old girl show her elk call... I kid you not. And the seller picked their offer because of it.

Another example: My seller was an older empty nester woman, recently divorced. A lot of the offers we received on her home were from investors that wanted to rent it out. She picked the one that wasn't cash (although in a similar price point), because he was an Iraq war veteran (according to his letter) and her son was active duty.

So yes, they work! I think as long as you don't get too emotional about it, and emphasize your flexibility with the closing date, it can only help you.

Xstatic3333 · January 2016

Sounds like a good plan, OP! Let us know how it goes, and good luck!

hoffse · January 2016

@julieanne, that elk call story cracked me up

CuriousKiddosMama · January 2016

As a seller this time around we did get a few letters with offers. They didn't help us decide between offers, the ones we got were trying to explain their financing.
The only time a letter would maybe sway me would be between two otherwise identical offers. It's a business deal, not anything else to me. Just my 2 cents, good luck!

julieanne912 · January 2016

hoffse said:

@julieanne, that elk call story cracked me up

It was seriously so ridiculous, I forwarded it to the entire team I worked on, none of us had seen anything like it!

sort of MM related: writing a personal letter with offer for a house

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