It’s an exciting milestone to get to the offer stage of a home purchase! You have (probably) seen a few (or more!) properties, you’ve identified what you like and must have in a home, and you have decided that one property in particular could be your home. So you decide to submit an offer! And then what happens?

Your Torii agent will present your offer to the seller’s agent.

Your Torii agent will draft up the offer documents and ask you to review and sign. All of the information within the documents is information you will have discussed, either at the home showing or over the phone. Once you have signed the offer documents (done electronically, unless you really want put pen to paper!), your Torii agent will present your offer to the seller’s agent. That means that your offer will go in front of the seller’s agent, and that agent has to (by law) present your offer to their client (the home seller) within 24 hours.

The seller will decide to accept, reject, or counter.

The seller can accept your offer as presented, reject your offer, or counter. A counter means that the seller likes your offer but there is something they want to change, whether it is the price or the timeline. With a counter offer, you then hear back from your Torii agent what those terms are. You then can decide to accept the terms, reject, or counter back. Your Torii agent will walk you through a counter if that is what you want to do.

If the seller accepts your offer…

Then congratulations! You’re on your way to home ownership! Your Torii agent will hear the news from the seller’s agent, and then you will hear from your Torii agent via phone call or text message to let you know as soon as possible.

If the seller rejects your offer…

Then on to the next! Sometimes offers are rejected because someone else offered more money, because someone waived an inspection, or because the timeline was better for the seller. In a “seller’s market,” where there are more buyers than there are sellers in a particular area, there are usually multiple offers on a property, meaning that not everyone can be the winner!

Occasionally, a property will be marked as pending or under agreement (meaning that the seller has accepted an offer), but sometimes deals fall through and the house might reappear as being on the market. If this happens, you can enter another offer.

Your Torii agent will always be happy to answer any questions you have about submitting an offer, the terms of the offer, and what to do next. If you ever have a question about the process, the documents, or your offer in particular, just ask!