How long to wait for offer to be accepted or declined

PadreM

Your opinion, please: have offered on house (c 6% below asking and subject to survey) as a chain-free cash-buyer (supplied usual proof of funds etc); vendor is chain-free.  How many days is it reasonable to wait for outcome?  I appreciate vendor/EA wants to await other possible higher offer - but of course I have other possibilities to offer on if this isn't to be that I don't want to lose, so there's a balancing of giving vendor 'acceptable' consideration time and potential buyer timely decision so they can look elsewhere if no.  I think three days is reasonable and not more than five.  EA gave no indication of when I should expect a decision (but I didn't ask).

Opinions appreciated, thanks.

Marcus

user1977

PadreM said:

 EA gave no indication of when I should expect a decision (but I didn't ask).

Opinions appreciated, thanks.

My opinion is that you should ask.

eddddy

Phone the EA to ask for an update, and mention that you want to view or offer on another property, if this offer isn't accepted (if that's the case).

The EA might explain the reason for the delayed response.

But FWIW, an estate agent told me that they often wait a day or two before getting back to a buyer when the answer is "No". They said it's so that the buyer has more time to build up their hopes, so they'll be more disappointed when they get "No" as the answer, and then they'll be more likely to increase their offer.

But that's just one possibility.

cymruchris

It might depend on how much interest there is in the property - if they've received multiple offers, they may review higher offers than yours initially to confirm position, and if they're happy take that offer, and if there's anything that worries them, move down the chain of offers until they reach yours. If you've offered this morning, I certainly wouldn't expect a reply by Monday. They may have other viewings booked in over the weekend - and want to see what comes from those first - they might tell prospective buyers 'we already have substantial interest in this property, and have already received offers, so if you're wanting it, be quick'. It could be the vendor isn't available until Wednesday for a reason or another. The reality is, there isn't a fixed time to hear back, nor likely an average time. If you're really wanting to know you could ask them as outlined above. 

BWZN93

What is 'reasonable' to one will be different to another. There isn't a fixed timeline unless you explicitly gave the vendor one as part of your offer. There's nothing to stop you from looking at other houses in the meantime so I suggest that you continue to do so in the meantime. 

Schwarzwald

PadreM said:

Your opinion, please: have offered on house (c 6% below asking and subject to survey) as a chain-free cash-buyer (supplied usual proof of funds etc); vendor is chain-free.  How many days is it reasonable to wait for outcome?  I appreciate vendor/EA wants to await other possible higher offer - but of course I have other possibilities to offer on if this isn't to be that I don't want to lose, so there's a balancing of giving vendor 'acceptable' consideration time and potential buyer timely decision so they can look elsewhere if no.  I think three days is reasonable and not more than five.  EA gave no indication of when I should expect a decision (but I didn't ask).

Opinions appreciated, thanks.

Marcus

If offered below asking you cant expect the vendor to jump at your generous offer.

therefore agree with 5 days, then call the EA and say you expect to hear back within next 24hrs or otherwise you assume the vendor is not interested and therefore wld withdraw the offer

YoungBlueEyes

I’d give it a few days, then ring the EA for an update. If they’re still deciding, I’d leave my offer on the table but keep looking at other properties. And I’d tell the EA that too. 

diystarter7

Hi OP

It is entirely up to you. We made offers years ago when buying the current house and then rentals.
We told the EA we wanted an answer a-spa. We go the answers as expected as our offers were low - often they came back with counter offers and on every property a deal was agreed upon within 24 hours.

You could easily say you have other property you may want to make an offer on so need an answer but set no time limit and see what the EA comes back with. If you are then happy or not on the response, you decide to jog on or set a time limit.

When/if they accept your offer, tell the EA that part of the agreement of the offer is that the property is off the market and advertised as sold STC - that is what we did.

donutandbeer

Since your offer is not accepted yet, you are free to keep viewing and making offers (you are free to do so anyway regardless). If multiple of your offers are accepted you can then think about which one you are going with. 

It really depends on how much you want this house! We are chain-free cash buyer as well, when we made our offer back in June we had to wait for a week for the estate agent to finish all the viewings that were booked, and then it went into best and final before our offer was accepted (it was on the high end of the asking price range and then we still had to bump it). Obviously we could have walked away when they didn’t accept our offer immediately, but we really wanted this house. It was (and pretty sure still is) very popular because of the size/price. There were other chain-free buyers and the vendor is not in a rush or buying anything, he seemed to be only really caring about getting the best price. I’m quite certain that if we asked him to accept our offer straight away or else we’d walked away, he would still want to finish all the booked viewings and he would still get similar offers to pick from. On the other hand this kind of houses (cheapest freehold) doesn’t come up in our area very often, in fact I’m still looking on rightmove every now and then and haven’t seen anything like this one. After we made our offer but before it was accepted, the estate agent kept in touch with us throughout so we knew when best and final was happening and when the decision would be made.

PadreM

Schwarzwald said:

PadreM said:

Your opinion, please: have offered on house (c 6% below asking and subject to survey) as a chain-free cash-buyer (supplied usual proof of funds etc); vendor is chain-free.  How many days is it reasonable to wait for outcome?  I appreciate vendor/EA wants to await other possible higher offer - but of course I have other possibilities to offer on if this isn't to be that I don't want to lose, so there's a balancing of giving vendor 'acceptable' consideration time and potential buyer timely decision so they can look elsewhere if no.  I think three days is reasonable and not more than five.  EA gave no indication of when I should expect a decision (but I didn't ask).

Opinions appreciated, thanks.

Marcus

If offered below asking you cant expect the vendor to jump at your generous offer.

therefore agree with 5 days, then call the EA and say you expect to hear back within next 24hrs or otherwise you assume the vendor is not interested and therefore wld withdraw the offer

Thanks; doesn't that depend on how reasonable the asking £ was?  We all know that *can* be fantasy, and it's accepted that other things being equal and chain-free CB is a better prospect.

PadreM

donutandbeer said:

Since your offer is not accepted yet, you are free to keep viewing and making offers (you are free to do so anyway regardless). If multiple of your offers are accepted you can then think about which one you are going with. 

It really depends on how much you want this house! We are chain-free cash buyer as well, when we made our offer back in June we had to wait for a week for the estate agent to finish all the viewings that were booked, and then it went into best and final before our offer was accepted (it was on the high end of the asking price range and then we still had to bump it). Obviously we could have walked away when they didn’t accept our offer immediately, but we really wanted this house. It was (and pretty sure still is) very popular because of the size/price. There were other chain-free buyers and the vendor is not in a rush or buying anything, he seemed to be only really caring about getting the best price. I’m quite certain that if we asked him to accept our offer straight away or else we’d walked away, he would still want to finish all the booked viewings and he would still get similar offers to pick from. On the other hand this kind of houses (cheapest freehold) doesn’t come up in our area very often, in fact I’m still looking on rightmove every now and then and haven’t seen anything like this one. After we made our offer but before it was accepted, the estate agent kept in touch with us throughout so we knew when best and final was happening and when the decision would be made.

Thanks; offer made and acknowledged on Wed so expect to give it to next Mon.  There was an 'open house' on Wed; I'd expect any offers on that basis to be made by end of play today (Fri) or latest tomorrow, giving vendor a couple of days to decide for Mon.