With painfully few homes on the market and the “sweet” Medford Colonial the perfect place to raise the baby they are expecting, Elizabeth Deutsch and Brian Rosen were determined to vanquish the competing bidders. Not only did they offer $11,000 above the asking price, but they wrote the couple who owned the home a personal note. “Dear Caleb and Autumn,” it began.

Small problem: Lisa, not Autumn, is the name of Caleb’s wife. Autumn is their dog, a boxer-terrier mix : beloved, but not a decision-maker in real estate matters.

“They got the place anyway,” said their broker, Ed Greable of Keller Williams Realty. “The owners got a laugh out of it.”

You would be cheerful, too, if you were a seller in spring 2013. And if you were a buyer, you might also be writing nice notes to sellers.

With inventory down and prices rising, buyers are exhibiting the kind of frenzied behavior not seen since 2005. It is not enough that they are mobbing open houses, bidding thousands of dollars over asking price, and making all-cash offers. They are going so far as to Google owners and craft pitches in which they pretend to enjoy the same things the sellers do. Family photos are not uncommon.

“The garage would be a great place to store my kayak,” one aspiring buyer, a nonkayaker, wrote to a kayaking owner. Some would-be buyers linger at open houses to eavesdrop on the competition. Greable said one client regularly called him from packed open houses. “The vultures are here,” she would whisper.

In a hot real-estate market, buyers make their pitches personal – Lifestyle – The Boston Globe.