Makes sense that they wouldn’t put a SOLD strip as the house will always continue to be shown when someone is in escrow with a house sale contingency.

Another buyer that does not have a house to sell in order to buy can “bump” the current buyer. The first buyer usually has what is called “a right of first refusal” where they have the opportunity to pull their contingency if another offer comes in. Some can’t remove the contingency and some can. Often no one knows until a second buyer comes in to try to bump them out of first position.

Remember that a Bank is generally a 9-5 Monday through Friday operation. A good rule of thumb is to give them 5 business days to respond. Same with a relocation property.

Rarely do they not respond at all.

This is for Bank OWNED property and not for privately owned property where the lender needs to approve the short payoff.

They do not have to respond. They can respond untimely, which what would at that time be considered a counter-offer even if it had the same terms (because they’d be too late to accept).

I’ve stated in the past that I don’t consider the time limits to be all that significant, unless you want to accept. I even recently did an untimely response on the seller’s side and it turned into a pending.

One clarification, you said “how much time does the seller’s agent have to respond to an offer”…

The seller’s agent doesn’t respond to an offer, the seller’s agent has a timeframe to “present” the offer to the seller, usually defined as “reasonable”. The seller “responds” to the offer, not the agent, in a normal sale of property.

The timeframe to respond is set by the parties to the contract and not “a law”. I don’t think any State has the authority over the buyer and the seller to that degree, as in “Seller’s MUST respond to buyer’s offer within x hours by Law”. But there is a legal timeframe, usually in the contract itself, when the offer will expire if no date is put on that line…usually 48 hours or so.

Laws usually are about licensee duties, as licensees are subject to more laws than consumers as a condition of licensing. The law usually says something like “reasonable”, the licensee must present the offer to the seller “within a reasonable timeframe once the offer is received by the agent”. Something like that in most States.

That being said a “reasonable” timeframe is generally considered to be not tonight, but by tomorrow night. It depends what time of day you submit the offer, but “tomorrow night” works most times.

Sometimes buyers will submit a great offer, with a very short time frame to respond, to avoid bidding wars…but that would likely be a full price offer with few contingency factors. Sometimes buyers will offer a low offer with a long timeframe, as in “if no one else offers better than this by a week from today”.

Relo woud be a good example of “Don’t expect a response until a normal business day”, if you make an offer on Friday late in the day…you likely have to wait at least until Monday, since most relo personnel who would sign it are Mon. – Fri. 9-5 workers, for the most part.

Here in the Seattle area, “a day” ends at 9 p.m., so if you say response by Tuesday, that means Tuesday night at 9 p.m., which allows for people to get home from work and then review offers.

Here in the Seattle area, 1-5 days equals business days, and 6 or more days equals calendar days, on all timeframes. This is more important when doing a Home Inspection addendum where 5 days equals 7 days, as putting 5 gives you the same timeframe, and looks better in the offer to the seller.

Offers specify an exact date and time like “Response to be by 9/15″ Sellers never HAVE to respond by the time the buyer wants them to respond, of course. But the offer becomes “dead” and has to be “revived” after that time, and the buyer is not bound to the seller’s acceptance, if the seller accepts it after the timeframe even if that is 10:00 p.m. vs. 9:00 p.m.