How long to wait for response on offer?

[Awkwarddough]

We put an offer on a house on Monday morning, we still haven’t heard if it’s been accepted. We’ve been ringing the estate agents morning and evening since then to check on the progress, but there always seems to be a reason they haven’t heard, he’s in a meeting, she’s working late etc... we really want the house but annoyingly have missed out on another that we wanted if they didn’t accept our offer.

We have offered really low but I’m getting fed up of waiting, when we had an offer we responded within the hour

how low is really low? If your offer is too low then the venders may just leave you hanging, unless you put a time limit on the offer.

It’s up for £325000 and we’ve offered £300000 but have said we won’t go higher. The house has been for sale since last year and was reduced in price in early January. I have thought about giving a time limit, but now we’ve lost out on the other house we wanted there’s nothing currently that we want so I feel like we might be cutting our noses off a bit

I think you have to assume it’s a “no, unless...” iyswim. It’s lower than they’re hoping for and they likely have several more viewings booked and don’t want to give you an outright rejection until they’ve had those viewings and perhaps some more offers, then they can either reject yours or ask if you want to increase.

If you want to push it, say it’s on the table until X date at which point you’ll no longer be interested. But that also depends on how much you like the house and how buoyant the local market is.

@ComtesseDeSpair part of me thinks if it’s a no then surely they would have known that from the start, I’m confused as to how their home could have been on the market for 7+ months and they hadn’t thought about what they would/wouldn’t accept!

I have just rung the estate agents who again said the lady has had back to back meetings all day but has text the agency to say she knows they’re trying to be intouch!

I suppose their logic is that if they’ve already reduced the price previously then you aren’t offering them £25k under price but £50k under price (if they had it on previously for £350k) so in their heads it’s probably a lot more to think about.

I don’t think there’s any harm by contacting again to say that you really like their place but there’s something else you have your eye on so you’d like a response ASAP. Might at least hurry their decision along or prompt a counter offer. I doubt the owners really are in back to back meetings rather than just stalling - I bet if you offered them asking price they’d respond in a flash!

They might have made an offer on something they want to buy and waiting to see if it's accepted. That might give them some leeway in accepting a lower offer on theirs. Ask the agents if there is a chain.

It feels like they are hedging their bets, they have your offer and maybe have some imminent viewings so want to know the outcome of them. I think it’s fair to say you want an answer by a certain day / time. They have already had a few days. Otherwise you may miss out on other properties