When the First Offer Feels Too Soon

At a recent Sunday open house, a buyer fell in love with a home we were selling. They quickly submitted a strong offer, well above the asking price, and asked for a response before the sellers had planned to review offers. It was an attractive offer, but we had priced the property to encourage competition and communicated to everyone that offers would be reviewed at the end of the week. After just one day of showings, the sellers faced a difficult decision: accept a strong offer in hand, or risk losing it to see what the rest of the market might bring.

When a seller decides to price a home to encourage multiple offers, it's a deliberate strategy that depends on exposure: enough qualified buyers need time to see the property and decide whether to compete. When the asking price was set to attract competition, an offer above asking is encouraging, but it doesn't necessarily establish the property's full market value. It shows what just one buyer was willing to pay before the rest of the market had a chance to respond.

Even without a multiple-offer strategy, an early offer can be exciting and put pressure on a seller, particularly when it comes with a short deadline. Accepting it can leave the seller wondering whether money was left on the table. Waiting carries its own risk. The buyer could withdraw or purchase something else, and if no other offers follow, the seller may regret passing on an opportunity that was already there.

It helps to look at the deadline from the buyer's perspective. Someone who has been searching for months and finds the right home on Sunday is understandably motivated to secure it before competition develops. Often, that's the purpose of an early deadline. Yet in our experience, buyers who are serious on Sunday are generally still interested at the end of the week, especially when the review date was communicated from the beginning.

Our sellers weighed one important fact: most of the market hadn't seen the home yet, with the brokers' open and private showings still ahead. They decided to stick with their original plan. We thanked the buyers for their offer, explained that the sellers intended to honor the previously communicated schedule, and continued marketing the property.

More than 160 people attended the 2 open houses, and by the end of the week, we had multiple offers. We responded to each, giving the interested buyers an opportunity to improve their terms. The original buyers stayed in, significantly increased their price, and ultimately purchased the home for several hundred thousand dollars more than their first offer. It could have gone differently. The first buyers might have walked away, and the other offers might have been weaker. But allowing the planned exposure gave our sellers a clearer picture of demand and, in this case, a substantially better result.

Not every early offer should be held until a predetermined review date. If buyer activity is limited, or the offer is exceptionally strong relative to the property's likely market value, it may make sense to negotiate immediately. Waiting for competition when there's little evidence it will materialize can be costly.