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I'm a first time homebuyer.
In the last five days I saw a house I liked (after searching for a month and loosing out on two others) and an hour later I told my agent I wanted to make an offer. The next day I was told by my agent that the seller is only accepting the highest and best offers and they're due by noon that day.
I told my agent how much I wanted my offer to be and that was before 10:30 am (I went a good deal above asking because I really wanted this house). At this point I hadn't signed anything and had no idea I was supposed to sign an actual document.
I didn't get any paperwork to sign to actually make the 'real' offer until nearly eight hours past the deadline.
Is this typical? Don't most agents have to move fast? Shouldn't the contract be extremely easy and put together in about ten minutes?
How long after the deadline does the seller choose an offer?
How do I know my agent even presented my offer before the seller choose one and is there any hope for me on this house?
If you didn't sign anything then you didn't make an offer. Your agent seriously dropped the ball.
In this day and age, there is no reason your agent couldn't write up an offer, email it to you for electronic signature, and submit the offer. Even if your agent were in the middle of something with another client, if the deadline was an hour and a half away, I would personally call a colleague to help me by preparing the offer for me and sending it to me for review then forward it to my client.
One question: did you actually talk to your agent about your offer or just send a text or leave a voice mail? If the latter, then it's possible she didn't get the message until too late. If you actually talked to her, then there is really no excuse.
I would talk to your agent asap and find out why she didn't submit your offer on time.
Your agent could have talked to the listing agent, made a verbal agreement to be followed up with the written one shortly thereafter. The listing agent would not be doing their job very well if they refused the offer b/c it was too "late" if they did indeed know it was going to come. In answer to your question, your agent should have been more responsive though...I expect stellar service from a real estate agent b/c agents are in the service industry and there are lots of agents to choose from. If they are not willing to go the extra mile, fire them. If your agent did cause you to miss this house, fire them. There is no excuse for not getting the job done.
That said, the contract is very straightforward (depending on your area) and should take between 1 and 3 hours to complete depending on how complicated you wanted to make your offer. The Texas contract is VERY easy, and the contract and all addendum can be complete in less than an hour if your information is all already loaded up and ready to just export to the e-doc forms.
None of it is complicated, and its even easier when its been done hundreds of times.
Typically, a 'best and final offer' is requested AFTER multiple bids have been received. The buyer (or Realtor) may actually be saying that the listed price is 'firm' and that the buyer doesn't want to negotiate lower, but, even so, a house sale is always negotiable. Are you, for example, 'waiving your rights' to ask the buyer to resolve major issues that may be discovered during the inspection?? (I hope not!).
The suggestion that you should immediately offer more than list price, seems contrived by an overly aggressive Realtor. A full-price offer with a reasonable 2-day buyer response period, should get you the house, unless, ... you are in a really hot market and facing a multiple bidder situation. ---
[By any chance, --- did a Realtor you contacted show you this house ... OR are you dealing directly with the Seller's Listing Realtor (who is representing the seller's interests) ... and mistakenly referring to them as 'the or your' Agent/Realtor?]
Typically, a 'best and final offer' is requested AFTER multiple bids have been received. The buyer (or Realtor) may actually be saying that the listed price is 'firm' and that the buyer doesn't want to negotiate lower, but, even so, a house sale is always negotiable. Are you, for example, 'waiving your rights' to ask the buyer to resolve major issues that may be discovered during the inspection?? (I hope not!).
The suggestion that you should immediately offer more than list price, seems contrived by an overly aggressive Realtor. A full-price offer with a reasonable 2-day buyer response period, should get you the house, unless, ... you are in a really hot market and facing a multiple bidder situation. ---
[By any chance, --- did a Realtor you contacted show you this house ... OR are you dealing directly with the Seller's Listing Realtor (who is representing the seller's interests) ... and mistakenly referring to them as 'the or your' Agent/Realtor?]
I'm going to put this nicely and say in many markets this post is less than accurate advice.
In my market, homes are selling quickly and getting multiple offers immediately. As many of the offerst that come in are well above list price right off the bat, if you don't do the same then you have no chance to get the house because the listing agent is not coming back for "highest and best." They just accept the highest initial offer because they're happy to take it as it's usually 10's of thousands above the list price.
I think you might want to switch to a different agent. Sounds like yours isn't very responsive, and isn't doing their job to keep you informed about the process.
Sounds like an offer wasn't made -- generally when you get into "best and highest" offer territory, there's a bidding war going on or the listing agent is trying to encourage one. I've also seen it happen in situations where a house is listed for a very short time period, offers are accepted during a very short timeframe, and you need to "go big or go home."
I hope this doesn't sound critical, I'm just trying to be helpful, especially since you mentioned you're a first time homebuyer. I don't know your financial situation, and whether you can afford to pay all cash, or if you're going to need financing, and if so, how much you can afford to put down. So this might not apply to you... but... If a house is on the market for $200,000 and you offer $225,000 and your offer is accepted, how much the bank will loan you is depending upon how much the house appraises for. I recommend reading up on LTV (Loan to Value). You'll also want to ask your agent about appraisal contingencies in a contract -- in a nutshell, this says a contact can be voided in case the house doesn't appraise high enough.
You didn't mention your location (which would be helpful). My area is a hot market, but I'm not sure if yours is or not.
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