How long is a reasonable amount of time to wait to hear if your offer is accepted?

[Jaffacakesaremyfave]

I'm a first time buyer and so very naive to the whole house buying etiquette.

I put an offer in Monday morning and the estate agents rushed me in to provide proof of identity and mortgage in principal etc. which I did. The offer was immediately rejected and so I upped it again. A couple of hours later this was rejected but they came back with a counter offer which I matched straight away (now realising that I probably should have made them 'sweat' for abit before doing this but I'm really not good at playing the house buying game). This was about 3pm and since then I've heard nothing.

Apparently there is a 3rd party involved in the negotiations (I think they are at some stage of repossession but not repossessed yet) and I'm now waiting for the vendor to agree.

Is it usual to take this long on confirming an offer? I'm in a good position to buy (no chain), have a mortgage in principal and matched their counter offer which is only 5k under asking price. House has been on the market since Feb this year.

Do you think they are trying to make me sweat or are thinking of upping the asking price again? I thought that counter offers would be accepted much quicker.

I've phoned the estate agents a couple of times for an update but they keep saying they are waiting to hear. I really dont trust them tbh (vendors seem genuinely lovely though) because as soon as I got there on monday they tried to hard sell me their mortgage advisers products (despite me saying I had a mortgage advisor and they were more expensive in fees) and he was abit of a twat. He said that he's found in his experience that first time buyers need things explaining as if they 'were a child' and when showing him a PDF of my bank statement as proof of address, i said I'd email it and he said 'dont worry, i can do it' and started emailing it to himself from my phone. He also got involved in the bidding process and asked me what I'd be willing to go up to (whilst saying 'see how helpful I am' etc) and I stupidly told him so I'm now thinking that's why my 2nd offer was rejected (they knew I'd go up 5k more).

I can't believe how stressful this all is. I really love the house and so do my DC but I can't stand the not knowing!

Is this normal practice? How long do you wait before calling it a day? In reality I'm prepared to pay asking price but trying to save the extra 5k as it does need a new bathroom and kitchen

It's Wednesday. If you carry on chasing you'll appear desperate and you're at risk of them trying to get you to increase your offer again. Carry on looking - arrange some more viewings for the weekend, preferably with one through the same agent. This gives you a fall back and lets them know you aren't banking on this one house.

Agree with the above, make a viewing with another house same agent. You showed your cards too early,

A couple of tips: never disclose your maximum to an estate agent; remember the EA works for the vendor, not you however 'helpful' they are being; and don't show them an agreement in principle which is for your max amount - you can get an online aip based on your offer on a specific house or flat which is a soft credit check only from many mortgage providers. That way you are not revealing to the EA what you max is, you are simply confirming you can afford to buy that particular property.

Thank you everyone for your replies and good advice. I've just found out they accepted the offer so I'm really pleased. Just have to go through the monumental process of applying for a mortgage now!!!

If this house falls through I'm definitely more wise to what not to do next time so thank you!

Huge congrats Jaffa. Waiting to hear back on an offer myself and have felt very pushed around as an FTB! Horrible isn’t it

Yes you must always remember the agents works for the seller no matter how friendly and ‘helpful’ they are! But you’ve had your offer accepted - next stage is to get a survey. The bank one won’t be in depth enough - unless in a big block of flats I’d recommend the Homebuyers Survey. If it flags up something serious renegotiate!

Thanks @Christmastree43, fingers crossed you hear back soon. I know the wait can seem torturous.

I really hate the estate agents and wish I dodnt have to deal with them. It was the sleazy mortgage broker who called to tell me about the offer and then started harping on about how it was only accepted because he 'fought my corner' to remind them what a good position I'm in to buy. He then started trying to hard sell me his products again (mortgage, insurance, solicitor) despite me saying several times I have all of this in place already and I'm at work so cabt really talk right now.

I feel like he's taking advantage of the fact that i have to talk to him and using it as an opportunity to keep banging on even when I've said no 30 seconds previously.

I'm going to look into homebuyers vs full survey. Not sure which one to get because it is an old property (essentially 3 small terraced houses knocked together about 100 yrs ago) but then it seems in good condition and cellar has recently been renovated.