If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
Posted on 03/07/2022 6:39:30 AM PST by mac_truck
A federal judge has issued a preliminary injunction blocking Oregon’s first-in-the-nation ban on so-called real estate ‘love letters,’ personal notes from prospective homebuyers to home sellers, saying it violates the First Amendment by restricting free speech too broadly.
The conservative Pacific Legal Foundation had filed the lawsuit in U.S. District Court after the Oregon Legislature last year attempted to limit housing discrimination by prohibiting buyers from sending letters to sellers to try to sweeten their offers on houses for sale.
Those letters, often written to appeal to a seller to accept a potentially less-competitive offer, were outlawed as of Jan. 1 by lawmakers seeking to ensure that sellers couldn’t make decisions based on race, national origin, marital or family status, sex, sexual orientation or other protected classes.
A Pacific Legal Foundation attorney, Daniel Ortner, called the injunction a “major victory for free speech and economic opportunity.”
(Excerpt) Read more at oregonlive.com ...
Homebuyer love letters, that’s a new one on me.
And according to the headline, the ban on that was banned.
Is there a particular class of buyers that is perceived as being discriminated against?
Asking for a friend.
Been around long time. Perspective buyers write a letter to the owner telling them how much they love their house and their personal circumstances in an effort to gain favor in a bidding war, or gain favor in a low offer.
That's what's coming next.
Its been a thing in the SF Bay Area for @20 years. Trying to use sentimentality to get ahead of the other bidders, instead of outbidding them. Its worth a shot, maybe the seller is a silly ass. One can only laugh.
It’s discriminatory against illiterate buyers.
Or the note might be:
“I’m a raving lib. Sell it to me so we can continue the agenda.”
When we sold our house last year, we got a nice letter from the perspective homeowners as it was a competitive bidding situation. Of course, they also had the highest offer and best terms, so it’s was kind of a nice touch, but no real bearing on our final decision.
If people want to write ‘love letters’, so be it. If a seller wants to accept an offer based on a ‘love letter’, so what? People make stupid financial decisions based on far less, and it’s their right.
The only people that can be discriminated agaisnt, according to the left and the msm, are black people. Noone else can ever be discriminated against.
Why would any thinking people want to buy a house in lala land Oregon anyway?
My sis and I own a 3 plots of land we inherited. I receive about 5-6 offers a month by mail. Never seen anything like it. Most all are from out-of-state.
“It’s discriminatory against illiterate buyers.”
Given my observation of the state of online discourse on a number of platforms, I’d say that’s a pretty large group. Guess it’s better if we either “follow the money” or, as they said in Jerry Maguire - “SHOW ME THE MONEY!”
If you would like more information about what’s happening in Oregon, please FReepmail me. Please send me your name by FReepmail if you want to be on this list.
The gov thinks it’s their responsibility to protect people from making dumb decisions. That was never the role of government or,our constitution, but the left have hammered away until we now see laws like this idiotic violation to free speech proposal trying to be rammed through by self sanctimonious socialists who feel that they are so smart that it is their duty to protect the lowly ignant voters
An extended family member used a “love letter” recently in the SF Bay Area...sellers were Jewish, buyers were Jewish. Don’t know how many bids or how competitive they were, but they got the house. Sellers obviously liked the idea of a nice young family living in the house. Obviously you need to avoid outright discrimination against a bidder based on race/natonality etc., but if you have multiple bids, seems like you should be able to sell to buyers who will be the best fit for the neighborhood.
“My sis and I own a 3 plots of land we inherited. I receive about 5-6 offers a month by mail. Never seen anything like it. Most all are from out-of-state.”
Common when estates are settled.
My daughter and her husband wrote one and got the house for a lower amount than the other offer. They don’t know what that offer was, but the seller did say she was touched by the letter. It could have been $100 or $15,000. But the seller would be a fool to give up thousands based on a letter.
Personal experience: I bought a family farm that had been in the family since 1832. The seller was the last of a large family - his older brother's and his uncle's land adjoining had been sold to developers and subdivisions put in. He looked out his kitchen window at houses where his family raised cattle.
I was looking at the land (as opposed to the house) after my real estate agent (who had no interest in the land) left, and a good friend who was a long-time county resident was with me to scope things out. The owner thought the coast was clear and came on in - we met him and had a cordial conversation. He was extremely concerned that I not be a developer in a clever disguise. I got my friend and some of her relations -- who had been in the county since it WAS a county -- to vouch for me that I was just folks and intended to keep the land as it was - not to farm, but to train dogs. That satisfied him, and he took my offer which was a little lower than what developers had offered (land is getting scarce here).
Real estate agents don't like sellers and buyers to contact one another - they are afraid that they will get crossways or have a personality conflict and kill the sale.
Started during one of californias bubbles. An effort to have people feel a personal connection so they’d accept that offer. Sometimes it worked
Disclaimer: Opinions posted on Free Republic are those of the individual posters and do not necessarily represent the opinion of Free Republic or its management. All materials posted herein are protected by copyright law and the exemption for fair use of copyrighted works.