How long can we (vendors) mull over an offer for?

[heylottie]

Have had the house on the market five months. Haven't had that many viewings, but have had a couple of offers. They were too low for us to accept - we just couldn't afford to move with what they offered. Like a lot of vendors, we have a figure in mind that we have to reach.

Anyway, we were getting disheartened and our (crap) estate agent could only suggest dropping the price. We explained that we couldn't afford to move if that was the case, and as we quite like our house anyway, decided to stay put.

Gave in notice to estate agent (which ends 31st Jan). We haven't had a viewing for 6 weeks, so we have employed a builder to come and do the things that need doing, and also paint the front of the house. We (were) are reconciled to staying put

Wouldn't you know - we had a viewing yesterday and they have put in an offer marginally over what we need. I know - lucky right?

Except DH is now um-ing and ah-ing about moving at all. I told the estate agent we would get back to them on Monday. DH wants until Weds.

This is madness isn't it? Or is that a reasonable amount of time to consider a very reasonable offer? I worry the buyers will be pissed off.

We should call back on Monday and accept shouldn't we?
What is the ettiquette here???

TIA

This is what we did . Slightly different problem .
Had an offer that was acceptable , back in September . Sadly however the house we were after had an offer on it that we couldn't match , and there was nothing we liked , so we decided to stay put . We had to take our house off the Market and reject the offer .
Fast forward to mid December and the sale on the house we wanted fell through , so we contacted the agent and asked was the person still interested ( yes , she was ) and we hope to be moving in the next month or so .

Well you don't have to accept it. Whichever day you get back to them on I'd be tempted to say no and push for a slightly higher price!

What were your reasons for wanting to move in the first place and do they still stand? I think waiting till Weds is fine btw.

Ooh, yes reject the offer on Monday and see what happens.

When we bought our house the vendors took 3 weeks to accept our offer. That said, we expected them to take a while, since we knew it was lower than they had hoped and other offers they had had, but everyone else was stuck in non-moving chains and we didn't have to sell. It was the very top of our budget, so if they'd rejected in order to persuade us to come back with more we'd have walked away.....but we did make that clear from the outset.

Watch out for a clause in your contract with the estate agent. We had one which basically said that if we took the house off the Market and the estate agents had someone prepared to proceed with a reasonable offer, then we would still have to pay the estate agent fees.

Just something to be aware of!

Interesting, thanks so much for the replies. I thought i would get a very vocal 'take the offer are you crazy?!' Our house is on for guide price of 150 - 160 and they have offered 153. Another estate agent said he thought we would be lucky to get 145. So it seems a fair offer and I watch the local market like a hawk.
It seems greedy but even if we could get it up to 155 it would make a big difference, especially as we are going to the effort of painting the front anyway.
The reason for selling was to have a garden for DD to play in (we only have a courtyard) and also a third bedroom for guests. Those reasons still stand - we live in a cottage and i want a house really.
Ok - deep breath - I may compromise and wait til Tuesday... and then maybe see if we can prise a few more pence out of them.

(interestingly, as a side story, the estate agent showed them round yesterday and didnt tell me they were coming. I was out, and the house was fairly untidy but not yuck... I shudder to think what it could have been like... so when they phoned and said they had an offer I was very 'What viewing What offer??')

Oh I think if they've offered 3k over the bottom end of the guide price range then yes I'd accept that. I thought you meant the standard house is on for 175k, they've offered 165k or whatever....in which case I'd have tried to meet in the middle. But that does sound like a good offer.

That's a good offer IMO but it won't make any difference if you wait til weds