Writing a letter to seller -UPDATE

I spoke to my realtor yesterday. He said due to Covid, there is a shortage of homes on the market right now. People just don't want to have strangers walking through their homes and possibly spreading germs. He said homes he has sold more homes on an open house than ever in the history of his career. And the buyers are getting into bidding wars over the homes. He sold a house down the street from me for $20,000 over asking!

I have also had numerous cash offers through the mail. Some of them even list the offer amount and it seems too good to be true, so I am sure it probably is. I'm just going to stick to the realtor that I have been talking to for months now. He is so kind and reassuring. We talked about the problems some people are getting into with shady movers refusing to unload without more money and he said he has recommended a particular moving company for years and stands behind their work. He recommended having pods brought to the house and having people load them for me. I guess sometimes movers combine jobs and there are times that the wrong boxes get unloaded at the first stop. I don't want my things mixed up with anyone elses! I would rather have the pods in my driveway and then have them taken to Oregon and stored until I buy a home up there. I think that sounds reasonable. He even offered to look through his contacts to locate a good realtor for me in Oregon. He said he has moved 14 families to Oregon in the last 6 months.

I am seriously considering getting a hitch on my Subaru and renting a little unit to carry just the bare essentials such as a bed, clothing, a couple of kitchen items to cook with, and whatever immediate things I would want to have at hand. The rest can go in the pods.

I will be paying cash for my new house, and since I have no idea when a home will be bought, I have looked online at low-end mobile homes in the city. I have seen a couple in senior-only areas that were selling for 25,000 to 50,000. For me, that would be perfect because of my cats. Boarding them would cost me a fortune, not to mention be upsetting for them to remain somewhere unfamiliar in little cages for possibly months at a time. If I just had a bed and a couple of necessities in an older mobile home, I can spend time painting and fixing it up while I am looking for a house to buy and it wouldn't tie up much of my money. Then when I find a house, I can either sell the mobile or possibly rent it out if I don't need the money really soon. Or, if I buy a home that needs lots of renovation, I can just stay in the mobile while the work is being done. Moving is stressful!

That seems to be the trend here. My dd and ds and their spouses both wrote letters and got their houses. They also both put good offers in.

The National Association of Realtors strongly discourages loves letters to sellers due to fair housing as mentioned above. Our market also strongly discourages them. I saw these remarks on a listing once:

"DO NOT INCLUDE A STUPID LETTER WITH STUPID FAMILY PHOTOS OF YOUR BUYERS SHOWING OFF HOW CUTE THEY LOOK. The seller has no problem selling this house to ugly people. If you must include a buyer photo then FOR THE LOVE take a cute picture of their bank account balance and credit score."      

I don't know that the highest offer always wins. In our case, we were outbid big 50K, but our offer was solid and had $$ backing it up.

When we sold our house, the realtor made sure we knew that the buyers were wanting to live in the house and not rent it. That was very important to us.