The “I love your Spanish house” ploy

This article was originally on a blog post platform and may be missing photos, graphics or links. See About archive blog posts.

Interesting e-mail from a reader about the ethically dubious practice of house ‘fishing’ in Santa Monica:

‘A little while back, my parents who live in Santa Monica, got an unsolicited offer to buy their house. A fed-ex package was on their doorstep with a fully executed contract, cover letter and photocopy of the deposit check in it. The letter described a couple who has been looking to buy a place but haven’t been able to because of low inventory. The letter went on to compliment the ‘original spanish style’ of the home, etc.
‘Anyway, the offer was definitely below fair market value and I was pretty shocked that the realtors would do this. If my parents did want to sell it in this case, would the realtor represent both sides? If so, the offer was low and it would appear that the realtor would be breaching a very basic fiduciary duty.
‘The cover letter even gave the name of the buyer...so I researched him (and his wife) and saw that they had recently flipped a $2+ million dollar home in the Palisades...they had also been active buying and selling over the past 5 years. Needless to say, I became disgusted that my once normal neighborhood where I grew up is being taken over by ‘investors’ who are trying to tear away properties at below fair value from older residents.
‘Now it gets deeper. I talked to someone else on our block who is elderly and she said that they had also received a fed-ex from the same agent with the same buyer wanting to buy their home for the same reasons given to my parents...they ‘loved the Mediterranean style’, etc. Again, this buyer is going after older residents who have owned for a long time and seem to be hoping to get lucky and find someone wanting an easy way to cash out.
It would be great to find out if other people have been getting these types of offers...I am curious.’

Thanks for the e-mail; Thoughts? Insights?