To all the agents in the house,
Several of you thoughtfully responded last Sunday to my question about whether Oregon should go forward with banning "love letters," which are any informal missives and pictures that potential homebuyers send to sellers. The correspondence can be a potential homebuyer discussing their family, their dog, or sometimes a preference to be near a specific place of worship.
As a piece I wrote on the subject chronicled, agents largely agreed that the missives invite Fair Housing Act violations.
"The love letters are pointless," said RaySean Reaves, a Compass agent in Nashville. "When emotions plus money mix it creates a strong lawsuit cocktail."
But some agents wondered if the Oregon legislature is playing a game of whack-a-mole.
"A law like this also does not keep a buyer from walking up to the front door of a home and leaving cupcakes," said April Edwards, an agent at Keller Williams outside the Houston area.
Added Edwards, "I think laws like this, while well-intentioned, will only encourage buyers to use other means to get a message to the seller if they really want to."
This raises a couple of questions. One, is whether agents like Edwards are correct and there's almost no way to effectively police home sales to take away the emotional element. So, maybe any legislation is fatally limited in what it can accomplish.
The other raises a larger issue: What control you should have over your client. If your client sends pictures to the seller, bakes cupcakes, or pledges to name their first-born child after the seller, will you know about it?
With the rise of Zillow and other listings sites, it has been amply documented that buyers may only use agents for part of the homebuying process. What are the chances then, that you can ensure your client doesn't behave inappropriately?
Please email me anonymously at mblake@housingwire.com (Anonymously does not mean you have to create an email address with a pseudonym, though you are welcome to do that! It just means I won't quote you, in a story or a newsletter, without your permission.)
Sincerely,
Matthew Blake
Senior Real Estate Reporter
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