How long is too long to make a buyer wait for your response? Like so many other situations, it depends on many factors. At times, buyers will include a deadline for you to respond to their offer. You may think this is high-handed, but really it’s all just part of the process. Buyers are just as anxious about the process as you are and they don’t want to sit around for days waiting for a response. If there’s a deadline, you have certainty about how long you have to think it over and respond.
One piece of advice agents have doled out for years is to respond to offers within 24 hours. But there are so many considerations when you are selling by owner that responding that quickly just may not be possible. When a buyer’s offer rolls in, you’ll need to balance a number of factors as you decide about then deliver your response.
Take into account where you are in the process. If your home has been on the market longer than you had hoped, and the offer is within your acceptable range, you may want to formulate and deliver your response more quickly to be certain that you lock up your buyer. That 24-hour turnaround time might be just about right in this scenario.
Assuming the offer is at least minimally acceptable, you may need more time to construct a counter-offer. If that takes you 48-72 hours, there’s no harm in that considering you really have no idea whether the buyer will respond positively to the counter-offer, and it might just work to your advantage to let the other party stew a little bit. If you go this route, consider giving the buyer a head’s up via email about what your timeline will be. (But don’t disclose anything about what your response will be.)
If the offer is way too low, no need to wait. Reject it immediately and let the potential buyer decide about making a new, better offer.
