My sister got a house 110K less this way. Owner was wealthy and very entranced in neighborhood. She was building a big mansion.

She was not living neighborhood. House was easily worth 1.1 million. My sister was a teacher at her kids school and had three young kids same age her kids, and the same age as neighbors kids.

She skipped realtor sold to sister 990K and allowed sister time to sell her starter home and she closed on her house and bought new house same weekend.

BTW when we sold my moms house in an Estate sale my sister wanted to do same. We did a little off for a family starting out, we agreed up to 5 percent. Our lawyer said lets put a clawback provision and a stipulation on title they cant sell for ten years or tear down home for ten years and if they do the discount has to be paid back. Either way someone bought home in a bidding sale for top dollar as is no mortgage and never did it.

Ironically, the flipper saved home for infinity. it was Spring 2004 and flipper went route of renovating whole home top to bottom rather than tearing down. Market got weak and he ended up doing, driveway, roof, windows, basement, kitchens and bathrooms and barely got out in 2007. Once that huge amount of money put into the 1923 Sears Craftsman home it kinds guaranteed it will stay forever. My sister was just trying to save house and put someone neihbors wont hate us for. But the cash flipper did us all a favor.

Anonymous wrote:No. Cash talks.

Usually true.
But if it’s a close call and the sellers built the home and lived there for twenty years and love their neighbors and neighborhood, you can tug at sentimentality with a gushing letter about how you are looking forward to building cherished memories in the lovely home they created. Some people care about their neighbors enough to want their home to go to ”nice” people.

Of course, this also only works if offer is already competitive, IMO

We did it twice. First time we were the third highest offer but our terms were more attractive so not sure if it worked. Second time we got the house before it was listed and the seller specifically told us they liked the idea of the house going to a family.

I don't think of it as a Love Letter, but we wrote a letter to the Seller introducing our family. She had grown up in the house and understandably didn't want to see it torn down for a McMansion. We just explained how we intended to raise our family in the house and did not plan on tearing it down or selling it to any developers. She accepted our offer and we all felt good about it.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We wrote one and it worked...sort of. Not in the sense that the seller accepted our offer over a better offer, but that the seller was honest about communicating where our offer stood on in comparison to others amongst a bidding war. That gave us the opportunity to get back in the game and tweak our offer when we would otherwise have just been dismissed at the initial offer stage

This likely had nothing to do with your letter.

Except the seller specifically said that it had a lot to do with our letter.

Well you probably said some stuff in your letter that wasn’t quite true too.

Anonymous wrote:We wrote one and it worked...sort of. Not in the sense that the seller accepted our offer over a better offer, but that the seller was honest about communicating where our offer stood on in comparison to others amongst a bidding war. That gave us the opportunity to get back in the game and tweak our offer when we would otherwise have just been dismissed at the initial offer stage

Why on earth wouldn’t they have been honest about that without a letter?

Nope. We accepted the highest offer. We didn’t even read the letters.

Anonymous wrote:I think they should be illegal because they encourage/enable housing discrimination. When I was a seller I asked our agent to block them for us.

The agent I respect most won’t accept them, help write them, or convey them. It’s a term in her contract, for this reason.

Ours worked! Multiple offers and outs was accepted, no escalation. However our seller had lived in our house for 35+ years, very emotional sale. If you know the owners have owned forever, raised kids there, loved the house I would definitely write a letter. Otherwise it doesn’t matter.

We got one pre house listed. Lovely couple. When I wrote contract I said I had a buyer and if they buy 1.5 percent commission. My realtor was charging me 5.5 percent.

We told couple you can have it for 3 percent less than final offer we get with realtor.

They could not afford it but thankful. I am more than willing to help if it does not cost me anything more than time

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We wrote one and it worked...sort of. Not in the sense that the seller accepted our offer over a better offer, but that the seller was honest about communicating where our offer stood on in comparison to others amongst a bidding war. That gave us the opportunity to get back in the game and tweak our offer when we would otherwise have just been dismissed at the initial offer stage

This likely had nothing to do with your letter.

Except the seller specifically said that it had a lot to do with our letter.

No. Cash talks.

I would have liked one. We had similar offers and in fairness went with the first one. They were huge PITAs. But maybe they would have written a nice letter and won anyway. Who knows. So hard to pick an offer.

Anonymous wrote:

Anonymous wrote:We wrote one and it worked...sort of. Not in the sense that the seller accepted our offer over a better offer, but that the seller was honest about communicating where our offer stood on in comparison to others amongst a bidding war. That gave us the opportunity to get back in the game and tweak our offer when we would otherwise have just been dismissed at the initial offer stage

This likely had nothing to do with your letter.

Well the question is did the seller do this for all the lower offers or just the PPs? In most cases buyers don't get a chance to counter.

Anonymous wrote:We wrote one and it worked...sort of. Not in the sense that the seller accepted our offer over a better offer, but that the seller was honest about communicating where our offer stood on in comparison to others amongst a bidding war. That gave us the opportunity to get back in the game and tweak our offer when we would otherwise have just been dismissed at the initial offer stage

This likely had nothing to do with your letter.