I have been using letters of intent and sending these to different realetors who have houses listed. I use these letters of intent because they are easy and save me time. However, I have not been hearing back from these realetors about my offer. Or I have to contact them myself. My question is: How do I know that my offer is being submitted to the owner and aren’t realetors obligated to get back with the person making the offer? If anybody, that can shed some light on this I would certainly appreciate it. Thanks, Joe.
If REALTORS are ignoring your letters you must be doing something wrong. Try spelling the name REALTOR correctly that may help if you have it in your letter. This really shows that you may be new at rei or have no idea what you are doing. Nothing personal I can not spell either that is why I use the computer to check it for me. I would not even use a letter of intent. Someone else will be submitting a contract and close the deal while you are waiting on an answer to a useless piece of paper. Realtors are required to submit all offers but that is about it. Owners are not obligated to respond to offers. The Realtor may be lazy and do not even call back. I am sure that if they wanted to sell you the house they would call back. I have called a Realtor in East Austin and they have not even answered the phone for 3 days, Figure that.
What price are you offering? Are they low ball offers? This may by the reason too for no response. There are other ways to find houses hat do not even involve Realtors. A lot of MLS listings are near full market value and the sellers may not even be motivated at all.
If what you ar doing is not working then try something else.
Good luck and thank you,
Ted P. Stokely Jr
11505 Sw Oaks
Austin, Texas 78737
512-301-9171 home
512-587-6177 mobile
Regardless of whether you’re dealing with RE licensees (that’s a term you could use and not have to worry about spelling “Realtor” correctly) when you want to submit offers, I would suggest your giving them or the seller a purchase contract. As Ted said, letters of intent are worthless, and as attorneys would probably tell you, even if you and the seller sign it, letters of intent are not enforceable.
Why not just get your own realtor and have them contact the listing agents directly? You are not saving money by going straight to the listing agents (unless you are an agent). The listing agents just get more commission if the deal happens. You can have your agent write up the offers for you and all you would need to do is sign. Takes less time than writing a letter of intent and is more effective in getting a response. Agents like to work with agents.
-ARM
When you talk to them, remind them that by law, they are obligated to present any offer to seller.
David Garcia
I’ve had a lot of success using letters of intent. They work really well if you’re blasting out 40 or 50 offers at once and they save lots of time over writing 40 or 50 contracts. However, most realtors are not used to seeing LOI’s.
The step your missing is you’re not using your own agent to submit the LOI. You’ll probably have to educate your own agent as to what an LOI is first and he/she will in turn have to educate the listing agent. Once everyone understands what you’re trying to do and know’s you’re a serious buyer, you’ll be off and running.