How Long Should Sellers Wait To Sign a Purchase Offer?

Like Christopher Guest’s Waiting for Guffman, I find humor in some situations that others don’t find amusing at all. One of my favorites is when sellers feel offended because they are asked to make a decision to sell within a specified time period. Some sellers think that when they receive a purchase offer, they should be able to table it, to wait a few weeks or so before responding. Where do they get this?

Knowing that home sellers can be like this, when I write an offer for a Sacramento home buyer, I generally give the sellers ample time to respond. I don’t want them to feel pressured or rushed. Back in the old days, like in the 1970s, I used to write my purchase offers to expire “upon presentation.” But sellers are more finicky these days.

Imagine how a guy feels when he asks his girlfriend to marry him and she says, “Let me think about it.” If I were a guy, I’d be crushed. Of course, if I were a guy, I wouldn’t ask my girlfriend to marry me unless I knew she would agree. The secret to winning a bet is to make sure you’re right in the first place. Eliminate the odds.

Like the time I was lying on the beach in Orange County with one of my ex-husbands and a plane flew overhead. I said, “Hey, there goes a 737.” He disagreed. He said it was 747. We argued — see, there’s a reason he is one of my ex-husbands. Finally, we made a bet. If he was wrong, he had to bathe my cat, Ashli. That was my terms, and I don’t remember his because I won the bet.

But it’s kind of silly to wait more than a few hours before responding to an offer. If a seller doesn’t like the terms of the offer, then make a counter offer. Do something. Don’t just sit on it. An offer is not just a piece of paper. It represents buyers who are in agony.

While Elizabeth is on vacation, we are revisiting her favorite blogs from previous years.