Three years ago, I did a ton of research on cardigans.
That’s a real sentence, and I stand by it. I wanted one great house cardigan — the old one didn’t fit after I lost some weight — and the logic was simple: something I could throw over anything for Zoom calls, meetings, podcasts, and instantly look put together.
I found the cardigan. On sale for $190. And I’m not exaggerating — I got compliments everywhere I wore that thing. Target. The park. Walking to the grocery store. Out to eat. Strangers, left and right.
Then I washed it.
Shrank it. Ruined my beautiful cardigan. Turns out if you want to destroy my sweater, you don’t even need to hold a thread — a washing machine works fine.
Colleen is smaller than me, so she got a very nice hand-me-down and I got a hole in my wardrobe.
Fast-forward to this year. One of the chemo side effects is cold sensitivity — I put winter gloves on to grab stuff out of the freezer, and at the grocery store I can feel the cold aisle from a good distance away. So I decided it was time to get my house cardigan back.
Colleen looked up the brand for me — it had been three years and I’d forgotten. I pulled it up on Poshmark and there were tons of listings, most of them sitting around $150.
So I did the thing I always do.
I sprayed lowball offers everywhere. Fifteen bucks. Twenty. Thirty. Listing after listing. My honest expectation: nobody accepts these. The one I bought was $190 on sale.
Seven cardigans showed up at my house.
Seven. All of them combined cost less than the one original cardigan.
I FaceTimed Colleen — “you’re not gonna believe this” — and did a full fashion show. Colleen, her boyfriend Chris, my sister Katie. Went through every single one. And Colleen said the thing that’s the whole reason I’m telling you this story:
“I just never thought about lowballing like that before.”
Most people don’t.
And this is exactly — exactly — how letters of intent work in real estate. Time and circumstance.
Those cardigans were listed at $150. I said I’ll pay twenty bucks plus shipping. And somewhere out there, a seller who would’ve laughed at that offer in month one looked at it in month six and said, you know what? Fine.
Same thing with LOIs. Come in with a cash, hard-money offer at a certain percentage. Then come in with a second offer — seller financing, some down payment. Make them say no.
They might say no now. But come November? December, right around Christmas? The new year? You think they might change their mind? I bet they might.
Make them say no. Then let the calendar do the negotiating.
I’ve always looked at it as planting seeds. I planted a bunch of cardigan seeds, and by accident I now have an incredible cardigan wardrobe. It’s all I’m going to wear around town this winter. It’s just going to be my thing.
I told Colleen I’m starting a new tradition: I’m keeping my house cold, I’m offering everybody a house cardigan when they come over, and we’re taking selfies in our house cardigans of choice. Chris is already covered — we found him his house cardigan on a thrifting run a while back. A whole tradition, born from one laugh.
Now — I’m not emailing the brand to this entire list. I feel bad if I tell everyone and then nobody can win. But if you want to know the brand and where to spray your offers, hit reply. I’ll let you in on it.
One more thing. If you’ve been thinking about switching brokerages, don’t ask me — ask Wendy Zolnowski, who joined us last week. She’s been in the game over a decade — we go back to our Keller days — and I asked her straight up: don’t you feel how we’re different? Don’t you feel it?
She said yes. Mind blown, empowered, ready to kick butt. Let’s keep track of Wendy — let’s see the results. And if you’re on the fence, reach out to her and ask what it’s actually like here. She’s a great agent and she’ll tell you the truth.
And she’s not the only one.
When Shey Blake joined us, she was averaging 0.25 deals a month. A quarter of a deal. Since joining, she’s averaging seven deals a month — and she’s built an entirely new revenue source generating recurring monthly income on top of it.
Cameron Keehn joined and is now earning as a mortgage lender too. I don’t take a dime of that — that’s his revenue, another way for him to earn and serve his clients. He told me his pipeline has never been more packed.
Kasey Robinson is a rookie agent on paper — with ten years of flipping and BRRRR experience behind her. Seems like every other day there’s a new buyer or listing from her coming through dotloop. She’s killing it.
And Jake Fabish is killing it too, all while running his woodworking business. If you ever need a deck built, a repair, anything woodworking-ish — he’s the guy to talk to.
Everyone is thriving, not just surviving, at Winner Realty.
That’s the whole point. I built this thing to be affordable because I want to serve a lot of you — I don’t want to get rich off one person. I want to help everyone get there, and then I’ll get where I’m going. I love pouring into people. It makes me feel incredible.
And I mean that for you, too — not just agents. Book a call: https://robbergeron.youcanbook.me. What’s the biggest bottleneck in your business? I want to put my brain on your biggest problem. It would be an honor if you told me what it is — and I want to help you solve it.
Or just hit reply for the cardigan brand. Lowball season is a mindset.
📊 Yesterday’s poll: Has life come full circle for you? “No” and “Not at all — but I’m ready to make some magic happen” tied at the top at 40% each, straight “Yes” at 20%, and not one of you picked “truly remarkable.” Not one. That’s fine — the magic-makers are my people anyway. Let’s get you a full circle worth writing about.
With Enthusiasm,
Rob Bergeron
Owner–Realtor at Award-Winning Winner Realty
Winner Realty | OffMarket.deals | Property Partner Data Company
Schedule time to discuss your goals, bottlenecks, or whatever’s on your mind — book me here.
PS: Learn the history of offmarket.deals here!