What's in the new real estate love letter?
With traditional love letters off the table in many cases, Benton said she wanted to find a way to help her clients’ offers stand out without skirting the law. So she tried composing a new kind of note that focused instead on the team she works with.
Nicole Wheatly, a community development consultant and Benton’s colleague at Exit Strategy Realty, tried the same tactic.
“I needed to sell the team versus my client,” Wheatly said. “I focus on the mortgage broker that we’re working with, their years of experience, how effective they are, their communication skills etc. etc. I also speak about the attorney and how this attorney will help us ensure this is a fair, legal process.”
Benton added that she will include any information about the strength of her buyer’s finances.
“I am working with a buyer now who, they don’t just have a preapproval, they are approved,” Benton said. “They could close, if the seller is ready, within two weeks.”
Benton and Wheatly said this new love letter format doesn’t seem to be catching on widely yet, but they’ve gotten positive responses so far and said it could be beneficial to everyone if they become more popular.
It helps to make sellers feel more confident that the deal will go through, too, Wheatly said: “I think we’ve done extremely well with selling our team and making them feel comfortable that we’re going to be good to work with.”
Advice for buyers to compete
Love letters are hardly the only strategy buyers can or should employ to compete in the current housing market. The first step for most is to find an agent who understands the neighborhood where you want to buy and can help shepherd you through a process that will inevitably involve multiple bids and some amount of disappointment along the way.
It’s also a good idea to get a handle on your budget early, prepare to be flexible with your property wish list and do your research about the area where
you’re shopping. You won’t just want to make sure it’s a good lifestyle fit; you’ll also want to know a little bit about other successful transactions there so you can tailor your bid to the prevailing market trends.
You also can work on improving your credit score and growing your down payment fund if you’re not quite ready to start making offers.
Bottom line
It can be risky for buyers to tell sellers too much about themselves in a love letter because they could butt up against the bounds of fair housing. Instead, Benton and Wheatly said, agents can use these letters to promote the strength of the professionals behind the offer. Buyers also can prepare for intense market competition by doing their market research and boosting their financial profiles, all of which can help make their offer more attractive and streamline the path to closing.