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While I'm sure this falls under regional customs, personally here in MA, I would never and have never -not- put an expiration date on an offer. I've also never really come across a "stickler for the rules agent" that would have an issue if that date wasn't met... Getting an extension never seems to be a problem when you have a buyer that wants to buy and a seller that wants to sell.
Here in MA (fyi we have an offer to purchase, discovery period, then Purchase and Sale), dates get changed on the offer to purchase so much that they're almost not really taken that seriously.... but I've never seen them not included.
Plus... I think it's safe to say it's a buyers market wherever you are right now, why on earth would you want to give the seller any perceived "position"????
I agree, spotlight. Maybe nowadays these realtors I worked with in the past are changing their tune. I suppose it has generally been a seller's market for a while, until recently.
So I remain puzzled by my experience with deadline-shy realtors. You'd think they would know what would make deals more likely to move based on doing it countless times. But then, maybe I was working with dumb realtors. They seemed knowledgable in other areas (e.g. about the locality, homes possibly coming on the market, etc.) and overall I was happy with their performance, but I never understood whether it was just me being anal about wanting a deadline or the realtors being clueless about the benefits.
Yeah, I don't know how it works in your area, maybe dates aren't taken as lightly, but it does seem that your agent is either overthinking it or underthinking it... and frankly I'm not sure which :-D
To me, if there's a space on the form, I generally fill it in with something....
15 hours, usually presented at a time so they have the evening and the next day to respond, but not enough time to shop the offer around to everyone who's come through (in this area's case) the past 2-3 years.
Time is always a factor in negotiations, with a property actually priced above market, time is on the buyers side, as the more that passes without another buyer comming along only strengthens the buyers position. With a property priced below market, as a buyer, you wanna lock that up asap.
I hear you.
Ah well, if and when I got to buy another home, I'm going to insist on a deadline. My wife was sitting down at the table with me when we filled out the paperwork for our current home, and she was shooting me daggers while I was (politely) arguing with the realtor about wanting to put a deadline of 2 days in. Now I see even that was generous.
Offers absolutely can be withdrawn, up to accpetance.
However, here the norm is to put a deadline. I usually use a short time frame. If they don't get it back to me quick enough, they can always counter, which activates any unchanged terms of the previous offer anyways. For negotiation, I have a habit of letting offers/counters expire when I have the upper hand. I like to re-institute the fear factor, when a seller is assuming we will buy and getting greedy. Its a bit complex, but its somethng I love to do.
Even if a response is late, the fact that you open escrow here counts as showing you intend to proceed, though sometimes agents will want an addendum saying "all signature counted as timely now"...
I always put deadlines for my buyers. How can you work with no deadline??? Do never use "10 days after acceptance" and the such in offers. It is very weak and it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Use dates as deadlines. Always.
If the realtor that is helping you don't use deadlines he might be a very inexperienced agent.
I always put deadlines for my buyers. How can you work with no deadline??? Do never use "10 days after acceptance" and the such in offers. It is very weak and it can be interpreted in so many different ways. Use dates as deadlines. Always.
If the realtor that is helping you don't use deadlines he might be a very inexperienced agent.
nestor, the question is about offers, and dates and times for acceptance.
The question was not about the dates inside the contract, where "10 days after acceptance" might be used for say inspections. By the way, that is precisely the pre printed language on the armls contracts, and an explanation of how all dates are counted is part of the contract, so you might try backing off saying agents doing that are inexperienced.
Always use deadline for two reasons: 1) you should never leave and openended contract in someone elese hands, you could get cought in a "we signed it an hour ago" response when you have decided on another property. 2) by shortening the response time you reduce the chance of another offer arriving to compete with yours.
When I am in the listing agent role and I receive an offer, the first thing I do is call everyone who has ever looked at the property to see if I can scare up another offer. I just love to call and ask buyers to submit their "Last and Best". On the other hand I hate getting that call when I represent the buyers as I always feel like I am negotiating with myself. Use the date, it is a strong tool for both sides.
We are headed to Tecas from Hawaii next week to house hunt, we are moving there and intend to buy, we have a realtor we are working with and want to find a house, make an offer and hopefully get a contract done in 1 week, is placing a short 15-24hr time limit on an offer rude? reading the thread it does not seem so, but our timeline are less about having leverage and more about the time crunch we are under...thoughts? strategies?
Thanks
oopps thats "Texas" not Tecas
In the interest of covering the time that the attorneys will dink around with the paperwork (in some cases), real estate agents in NY aren't in control of a deadline. If they were (as in most places that do not use lawyers) you'd have a signed contract back within the deadline that you specify. New York does permit real estate agents to expedite the process by "filling in the blanks" on a state approved contract (then submitted for atty review), but they choose not to in areas surrounding the city (and Long Island). I digress- they aren't able to establish the lawyer timeframe, so discourage deadlines. They must not be representing the buyer.
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I'll try again: as a real estate agent with much experience in other parts of the country, relocating to NY and continuing in real estate has been interesting. Questions like this one should compel NY real estate brokers to get more involved in the critical areas, rather than (at the moment of a binder) relying on attorneys to finish the process. Let's hope.
How business is conducted in each state varies. If this is a local custom, it does not seem like a very smart business custom. Here on the left coast there is a 3 day expiration built in to the standard offer form. It can be modified, but never left open without serious application of whiteout.
If a Seller cannot make up their mind in three days, the Realtor working for the Sellers ought to look for a new line of work. I know a large majority of the other Realtors in my trade area and I am very active in our Trade Association. I have never heard of this practice. I cannot ever remember seeing an agreement on any business level that does not have a "Time-is-of-the-essense" clause. Even on the commercial side when I write a LOI in microsoft word there is an expiration.
It really is interesting to see how real estate is done in different areas.
The most widely used contracts in my area are the C.A.R. contracts.
There is an automatic 3 days after the offer is signed by the buyer to respond before expiration unless you specify otherwise w/date and time.
Randy has a great idea a concerning a short time period for response on offers because the first thing I do is get on the phone to everyone who has ever come through and try to get multiple offers.
BTW our contracts state days after acceptance w/defaults written in and an option to change the time frame.
Including an area at the end called “Definitions as used in this agreement”…which clearly defines the terms.
It’s surprising that an open ended offer such as you describe is even valid.
BTW to answer you question…always include an expiration.
LOL Jack...as long as you win while you are negotiating with yourself! Losing would be SO embarrassing.
This thread was interesting. I've heard of sellers using deadlines to keep the house on the market as much as possible, but not so many residential buyers. That's more common with commercial transactions here.
Hilarious. Why would you not put a response time & date in an offer? if the sellers can't be bothered to respond within 24 hours then imagine how they will be later on in the process. In this market who cares about making the sellers defensive? They can get defensive if they want and wait several months for the next offer to come around.
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Realtors: when you should/shouldn't put a deadline on an offer
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Mark75NYC
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This question came up in a different thread, and I thought it deserved its own thread. In my admittedly limited experience in the past, realtors have always tried to convince me not to include a deadline in my offer.
They argued it would put the sellers in a more defensive frame of mind and not be conducive to negotiations. They also pointed out that I could withdrawal my offer at any time before acceptance (under the terms of the contract), and that a better strategy would be to not include an expiration date in the offer itself, but if, after X number of days I wanted a resolution, to call the sellers and inform them that the offer would be withdrawn in 24 hours.
In any case, the realtors always convinced me not to include an expiration date, because I figured they wanted the deal to go through as much as I did and they had much more experience with this sort of thing than I did, and were familar with local practice when sometimes maybe I was not (e.g. moved to a new area).
I never had a problem with a seller taking too long to get back to me - typically they would get back to me within 2 or 3 days, which is generally what I would have wanted as a deadline anyway. But there's a school of thought that including a deadline makes an offer more likely to close.
So my question to all you realtors out there - under what circumstances do you advise or not advise a buyer to include an explicit deadline in their offer?
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