Should homebuyers write love letters to sellers to land their dream home? There’s a catch
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Affording Boise: Homeownership
Soaring rents. Skyrocketing home prices. The double-digit rates of increase in the costs of Boise-area housing until 2022 have created increasingly urgent problems for low-income, working-class and even moderate-income Idahoans who need places to live. Affording Boise is a series of Idaho Statesman special reports on housing. This collection focuses on homeownership. A separate collection focuses on rental homes, including apartments.
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Leta Harris Neustaedter’s landlord gave her six months’ notice to find a new place to live. With rents spiking last year, Harris Neustaedter figured she could buy a place and pay as much for a monthly mortgage as she would in rent.
So Harris Neustaedter entered the housing market looking for something on the lower end of the price spectrum. She grew up in Boise’s North End, and that’s where she had been renting. But she knew she’d have to look elsewhere to find a place she could afford.
Knowing she’d have to compete with other offers in the frenzied market of last spring, Harris Neustaedter began desperately sending letters to sellers. She wanted to explain how she and her dog, Annabelle, were a good fit for the home. She mentioned being a local, a music teacher and a social worker.
“How can I humanize this process and get these people to sell (their) house to me? Please pick me, please pick me,” Harris Neustaedter said by phone. “That was the reason why potentially writing a letter seemed like a good idea.”
With competition among homebuyers in the Boise area soaring in recent years, sending so-called love letters to sellers could be viewed as a way to make an offer stand out. But real estate agents recommend against this practice because of the potential liability at stake.
The Fair Housing Act prohibits discrimination based on race, color, national origin, religion, sex, familial status or disability. Even though some buyers may think it’s their only way to compete, a love letter could put the seller at risk of a violation.
“It made me think that who I am was going to matter,” Harris Neustaedter said, “when the only thing that actually mattered was how much money did I have.”
After getting beat out on about five offers, Harris Neustaedter gave up on the letters. The next house she made an offer on was the one she bought for $250,000 in Nampa.
The National Association of Realtors, Idaho Real Estate Commission and Boise Regional Realtors discourage the use of love letters because of potential risks. A seller could violate the Fair Housing Act whether it’s intentional or not. The best way to avoid that entirely would be for the buyer to not send a letter and for the seller not to read any letters received. Typically a letter would be sent to the seller’s agent, and it’s up to the seller to read it or not.
Zoe Ann Olson, executive director of the Intermountain Fair Housing Council, said she “can really feel for people when they’re trying to communicate who they are.” Someone with a less-competitive offer — not being able to pay cash, for example — might view a love letter as a way to make the playing field equal.
Love letters, though, are fraught with potential violations. The Fair Housing Act is designed to eliminate discrimination in housing even though examples have persisted.
“People hold on to love letters like that is their one chance that they can use to convince someone,” Olson said by phone, “but oftentimes, people are about selling their home for the highest price.”
Real estate experts weigh in
Jessica Dalton, team leader at House Hunters of Idaho, often has represented sellers who’ve received love letters. The key, she said, is educating them on what could be a violation. A lot of times, she said, sellers might not even know the protected classes.
“The best love letter you can write to a seller is a really clean offer,” Dalton said by phone.
That means focusing on the neutral terms of the contract and taking into account the things that matter most to the seller, like the timeline, inspections, proof of funds and other terms.
Sometimes, the additional letter can make a difference. Dalton said it’s “very exciting” when a seller takes a little bit less money because they’re attracted to the buyer’s interest in the house.
“People want to know that somebody is going to take care of something they loved so much,” Dalton said. “That means a lot to people.”
When working with buyers, Dalton might record a video of herself in the seller’s front yard and highlight the parts of the home that her client likes most. By recording the video herself, the buyer’s skin color or familial status, for example, won’t be revealed.
If Dalton found out a prospective buyer wanted to send a video message, she’d ask the buyer’s agent to send it on the client’s behalf.
Krista Deacon, a designated broker with Silvercreek Realty Group, has been in real estate since 2006. When the market heated up and competition rose in the past few years, love letters became more common, she said.
As a broker, Deacon is against letters because she wants to mitigate risk. Since the seller is the one at risk of breaking the law, Deacon said the seller’s agent could easily just never forward the letters along. If the seller doesn’t see the letters, any accusations wouldn’t go very far.
“Business can be conducted without pulling on heartstrings,” Deacon said by phone.
A seller could prefer to sell to someone who’s local, and a buyer could share that information without any fair housing issues. But Deacon said that could easily blend into mentioning topics that are supposed to be off limits.
“Who wants to break the law?” Deacon said. “Hopefully nobody.”
Love letters could create ‘slippery slope’
Looking back a year later, Harris Neustaedter wouldn’t have taken the same approach if she could do it over again. She wouldn’t have tried to make an emotional connection to a house she may never step foot in again. And she wouldn’t have risked a fair housing violation.
As a Black woman, she’s familiar with people’s biases, whether they realize them or not. She intentionally didn’t include a photo with her letters because she thought that might backfire, depending on the seller.
Those instances of implicit bias and racism are what the Fair Housing Act is designed to prevent.
Even if buyers say they like the location of a house because it’s near a church, that can be risky, because religion is a protected class.
“If we make buying a house reliant on who the seller decides they like the best, to me, that’s a really dangerous, slippery slope,” Harris Neustaedter said.
Harris Neustaedter added that considering whether someone is local or an outside investor might be useful for a seller to know. She wrote her letters in the first place mostly to share that she calls the Treasure Valley home.
But sharing any further details that fall under the protected classes is problematic, she said.
“There’s so much inequity built into our housing market anyway,” Harris Neustaedter said. “Giving people personal information to weaponize and use against people to pick and choose who they want to sell their house to, I don’t know, to me … nope.”
Love letters survive Oregon court case
In neighboring Oregon, the Legislature outlawed love letters last year. The argument was that they could lead to discrimination against people on the basis of the protected classes. The law says “a seller’s agent shall reject any communication other than customary documents in a real estate transaction, including photographs, provided by a buyer.”
A lawsuit challenging the law was filed in November, according to The Oregonian, and earlier this month, the law was fully struck down. U.S. District Judge Marco Hernandez ruled that the ban violated buyers’ First Amendment rights, The Oregonian reported.
Mike Gamblin, owner of Idaho Real Estate School and former chairman of the Idaho Real Estate Commission, wasn’t surprised the law was struck down. He called it an “astonishing government overreach.”
Like other real estate experts, Gamblin recognizes the dangers of love letters. Like many of his peers in the industry, he called the liability concerning. At the same time, he’s not sure there’s a clear-cut solution, because they can’t be outlawed.
The best practice, Gamblin said, would be for agents to explain fair housing laws and recommend against sending or reading any letters. But if the buyer or seller insists, agents may go ahead with their clients’ preferences.
“I think they’re going to continue to exist,” Gamblin said, “especially in competitive markets.”
This story was originally published May 23, 2022 at 4:00 AM.
