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05 Jul

How Long Do We Wait for a Response to our Offer?

Posted July 5th, 2008 | View Comments

Typically, offers are responded to within three days of receipt. That is the default on the actual residential purchase agreement in California (the RPA-CA) unless it is changed by your Realtor®, based on the circumstances. But especially in today’s market, it is a good idea not to get too caught up in the dates and deadlines, especially when dealing with banks. Most banks will respond within a week, especially if the property is an REO. But they might not and at that point it is up to you to decide if you are willing to wait longer than the date on the contract, and if so, how long.

If you are waiting on a short sale, besides wishing you good luck, I’d also say that you get your Realtor® to write a short sale addendum along with the offer. This will limit the time you wait legally to get the short sale accepted. The short sale addendum sets a date for the bank to come up with an approval date. If you don’t receive approval by that date, you are free to look elsewhere.

  • http://california.neighborcity.com/Sacramento/ Amateur Home Buyer

    Aren’t there other reasons to limit the amount of time your offer will be accepted? IT would seem to me that the more time you give them to accept/decline, the more chance someone else comes in with a better offer.

  • http://www.sacramento-home.com/real-estate-agents/ John Lockwood

    Yes, that’s true, you do want to put a limit on it to prevent the seller shopping your offer indefinitely. Indeed, before short sales became so commonly available, the default in the purchase agreement (3 days from signing) or less than that was generally what we went with.

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