Potential buyer very slow to respond - is this normal?

[LikeASoulWithoutAMind]

I should start by saying the house is in a fairly rural area, market pretty slow at the moment. I've only ever sold in London before so maybe my expectations are skewed by that!

We have 2 offers on the table from 2 potential buyers. Buyer 2's offer is better than Buyer 1's. Buyer 1 has been incredibly slow at each stage of the process from deciding on and completing a second viewing (that took over a week) to putting in an offer etc. It's nearly 4 weeks since their 1st viewing! Now 2nd offer has come in we thought that might sharpen their minds a bit. But they've had since first thing Tuesday morning to respond to the 2nd offer and all we've had back is yes we do want to respond. EA is very laid back about it but had asked them to respond by this morning - still not heard a thing. Buyer 2 now getting very antsy about it, they want an answer today. We're getting a bit nervous about losing the 2nd offer.

I could quite see that when they were the only potential buyers in the frame, Buyer 1 clearly (and correctly) thought they were in a very strong position and why look too keen, right? But I'm a bit confused about this latest delay. Is this normal? I've no experience except in much faster moving markets where you had to move quickly and decisively.

[wowfudge]

Does it matter? Buyer 2's offer is better and Buyer 1 appears to have dropped out as they haven't met your deadline. Go with Buyer 2. You can't make people get into a bidding war.

If you accepted Buyer 1's offer and then asked them to match Buyer's 2 offer at a later date, then I can understand them not rushing back to you.

[ajandjjmum]

Go with Buyer 2 - if I were them I'd be getting hacked off with you too!

[specialsubject]

not a good sign that they are half-asleep at this stage. Dump and go with buyer 2. Or lose both.

[Lottie4]

Don't risk losing Buyer 2, accept. If Buyer 1 really wanted it, they'd have been onto the agents panicking and stressing how much they wanted it.

[LikeASoulWithoutAMind]

We didn't accept Buyer 1's offer - we rejected their first offer and they took so long responding that in the meantime the EA arranged a second viewing! Buyer 1 has said something very vague like they are planning to counter offer - they did this with the first offer too, said they were planning to make an offer but then took nearly a week to actually name a figure EA spoke to them briefly last night and they promised a figure this morning.

We have told EA to tell Buyer 1 they have until 5pm this afternoon or we will be accepting Buyer 2's offer and proceeding on that basis.

[LizzieMint]

Did they come back to you? We had a viewer who kept insisting he was going to make an offer, he faffed about for 2 weeks and never came up with anything.

[AnnOnymity]

Go with buyer 2

[LikeASoulWithoutAMind]

No response from Buyer 1 so we have accepted Buyer 2's offer and it's full steam ahead. Quite relieved, didn't feel right about Buyer 1 at all.