Yes, you can withdraw an offer before signing a formal purchase contract. In most states like New York, it’s commonly known that real estate offers aren’t binding until the buyer and seller execute an agreement.
However, it would help if you were very careful about signing any offer submission form given to you by the listing agent. If you sign an offer to purchase form or any other customized offer submission form, you can make yourself vulnerable to a lawsuit if you back out of an accepted offer.
How to Deliver an Offer To The Seller in NYC?
Go Back To Previous PageWhen trying to buy a home, you must put together a massive packet that acts as a purchase offer. It’s a hefty bit of paperwork, but in most cases, buyers don’t deliver the package to the seller. Or rather, you don’t directly give it to people. So, who brings that packet to the seller? If you have a real estate buyer’s agent, then the agent remains responsible for delivering the offer to the seller’s agent. If you don’t have a buyer’s agent, you must drop it off directly to the seller or agent. You can send offers via email or through direct hand-to-hand drop-off. You aren’t alone in wondering what you should expect from the transaction. We’re going to explain everything to you. We will discuss acceptable methods for delivering an accepted offer.
Whose Responsibility Is it to Deliverer A Buyer’s Offer?
The Responsibility for delivering an offer rests squarely on the buyer’s party. Who pays your request to the seller depends on if you and the seller have real estate agents representing your interests. If the seller has an agent, your offer gets delivered to the seller by their agent. If the seller does not have an agent, your offer gets delivered to the seller by your agent.
However, who needs explicitly to deliver it can change. It all hinges on whether you hire a buyer agent or not. If you have a buyer agent, it’s up to them to ensure the proposal is delivered. Otherwise, you have to provide your offer yourself.
1. Who Receives The Real Estate Purchase Offer?
Once again, this hinges on whether or not the seller has hired a real estate agent to help them sell the house.
If they didn’t, then they received the offer directly. The request gets handed to the agent if they hire a real estate agent, and the agent then goes over
the offer with the seller.
If no agents are involved in the real estate sale process, the buyer puts together their offer and hands it directly to the seller. However, this is exceedingly unwise and inadvisable for all parties involved.
2. What Happens If A Single Agent Represents The Buyer And Seller?
The agent will help the buyer create an offer if this is the case. Then, once the offer is complete, they’ll send it directly to the seller to review it together. If you don’t have a buyer’s agent, you can submit your offer directly to the listing agent, who can represent you and the seller under a dual agency.
3. How Does Your Agent deliver an Offer letter to the seller?
In most other transactions, you can make a verbal offer. However, in real estate, that’s not the case. A real estate offer must be in writing as it involves much more than verbally settling on a price. Your offer will outline how you want the entire buying process to go.There are two primary ways the selling party gets offers on the house. Traditionally, the best way to do it is to hand it directly into the seller’s (or seller agent’s) hands. However, it’s not unusual for people to send buying offers via email. Generally speaking, it’s best to have a backup and a second physical copy before you hand it to a seller.
This way, you both can reference it at the same time. Besides, it’s suitable for security purposes, too.
4. What’s In A Buyer Offer?
- The Offer Price
- Commissions
- Payment Arrangements
- Contingencies
- Additional Notes
1. Offer Accepted!
Yay, you get to go forward on the terms you suggested. You are now locked into a deal, and you can expect to plan out your move. This is the best possible outcome you can get after you send out an offer in most situations.2. A Counteroffer
Sometimes, sellers may make a counteroffer with minor changes to your offer. You can accept, decline, or create a counteroffer. The counteroffer usually signifies that you still have a good shot at the house.
3. Offer Declined!
If they choose another offer or don’t want to entertain your offer, they’ll decline it. At this point, you might be able to get another offer started, but the home may not even be on the market. Most realtors will not advise you to try a second offer if this happens.Can A Seller’s Agent Refuse To Accept An Offer Delivery?
While seller’s agents can advise clients not to take an offer, they do not hold the right to throw an offer in the bin before the seller sees it. That’s not their right to do, even if the offer is ludicrously low. A seller’s agent has to show every single offer, even if the offer suggests a buying price of
three potatoes and a dollar.
1. What Should You Do If You Have Reason To Believe Your Agent (Or The Seller’s Agent) Didn’t Show The Offer?
The first thing you should do is talk to your agent and tell them the situation. If possible, explain why you believe that this is the case. Technically, this could be a significant breach of contract and grounds for a lawsuit. Your agent can help determine the next course of action.
If at all possible, try to ask the seller if they have seen your offer directly. The seller may want to talk to your agent if they have not. This is when one agent may have to lead a lawsuit against another.
2. How Long Does It Take To Get A Response From The Seller?
Response times can vary from place to place, but getting a flood of offers on a single condo or co-op in New York is common. In New York, an offer can have a response that takes anywhere from one day to one week.
At times, this entire process can take several days. Other times, there is a several-week wait period. This is more common in areas where homes are in high demand. It’s the seller’s way of ensuring they get the best possible offer among multiple offers.
However, there’s no set time when you will hear an offer. If you’re ever worried about this, ask your agent what you should do next.
3. Is A Seller Required To Respond To An Offer?
Most of the time, you can expect a home seller to reach out to you one way or another, and it’s considered a common courtesy. While it would be wonderful to hear from a seller every time you make an offer, the truth is slightly less than ideal. Nationwide, there are no laws that require sellers to respond to every offer that is made. If sellers don’t want to respond, they don’t have to. Unfortunately, this is something that can make your buying process difficult.What Happens After Making An Offer?
Once the offer gets sent to the seller’s agent, the “Waiting Game” starts. This means home buyers must wait while the seller looks at each option. Once sellers have reviewed the offers they received, they will decide who gets the home.
How Common Is It For An Agent To Refuse To Show An Offer?
Honestly, it’s not common because it would cause a significant scandal in most firms. However, it doesn’t mean that it doesn’t happen. In fact, at NestApple, we’ve seen it happen with an agent who declined to show an offer from our brokerage, and the result was not good.
Choosing a real estate broker you trust makes so much sense. Give us a call today.
Can You Back out After Delivering Your Offer?
While this is rare, we have seen instances such as McCarthy vs. Tobin in Massachusetts, where a judge ruled that
- an accepted offer was binding because both the seller and the buyer signed an offer to purchase form that contained common contract language.
- Furthermore, the buyer signed a purchase contract and delivered it to the seller’s broker as an earnest money check. Even though the seller didn’t counter-sign the contract and accepted another bidder’s offer, the judge ruled that the accepted offer was indeed binding.
Written By: Ossiana Tepfenhart
