Using Letters Of Intent With Real Estate Agents

Some real estate agents and real estate brokers prefer to write up a contract for each offer, while others use a letter of intent to express interest in a property and to work out the details before writing up a full contract to purchase real estate. Many bank owned properties (also known as REO properties) are explicitly telling agents not to submit letters of intent on their listings, but with private sellers, a letter of intent can be a good way to introduce your creative offer to a seller without a huge amount of time invested by your real estate agent.

If you are dealing directly with sellers to buy properties, rarely will you need to use a letter of intent. Instead, you’ll be meeting with them in person to sit down and discuss options for buying their property.

However, if you are working through a real estate agent (or two real estate agents if you’re not dealing with the listing agent directly), letters of intent can help you succinctly express your offer in the best light, especially when you don’t know if the agent who will be presenting your creative offer will understand the full benefits of it.

For example, I usually buy houses directly from sellers, but last week I started to make some creative owner financing offers for some houses through real estate agents. Once I was able to talk to the agents representing me, they immediately saw the benefits of my offer to some sellers. Unfortunately, the agents I talked to would be presenting my offer to another agent that represented the seller. So, I am relying on my agent to express the benefits of my offer to the seller’s agent, who in turn will present the benefits of my offer to the seller. With a concise letter of intent, I am hoping to give my offers a better chance of getting accepted by the seller despite all the moving parts and unknowns.

So, if you are working with a real estate agent, talk to them about whether using a letter of intent would be better with the offers you are making or if they want to continue to write up full contracts for each offer.

Until my next post,

James

P.S. Join for our mailing list and get access to several free real estate course downloads, special reports and more.

Related posts:

1. About The Calling Real Estate Agent Listed Property Checklist First, I want to start by suggesting that it is my strong preference to put...
2. Realistic Real Estate Agents and Unrealistic Real Estate Agents Last week I shared with you an article about my recent experience of looking for...
3. Working With A Real Estate Agent In Your Real Estate Investing Business If a seller is working through a real estate agent, the process of transforming the...
4. Finding Great Deals Through Real Estate Agents In your search for great deals, you are probably utilizing all of the resources that...
5. Real Estate Agents and Brokers – The Ultimate Real Estate Wholesalers? Real estate agents and brokers can be the ultimate real estate wholesalers. This is one...
6. Asking Agents To Find High Equity Deals There are lots of different strategies for investing in real estate from short sales to...
7. Finding a Real Estate Agent for Real Estate Investing – 3 Questions You Must Ask As both a real estate investor and a real estate broker associate, I would like...
8. Interviewing Real Estate Agents As A Real Estate Investor I done my fair share of interviewing real estate agents to work with over the...
9. Using Letters To Buy Houses In this Tuesday episode of The James Orr Show, you will find: First, James points...
10. Adding a Personal Touch To Your Real Estate Investor Marketing Advertising creeps into people’s lives every moment of the day. All a person needs to...