Recently I had a buyer make an offer on a property.   The Listing agent had stressed that the Seller really wanted to sell and bring all offers.    My clients made a written offer that was actually very reasonable and not subject to the sell of any property, but a clean Contract.     The Offer was approx 5% off the asking price.  Offer was countered and the buyers who lived out of town decided to ponder if they wanted to accept, counter or wait and see if the Seller changed their mind about accepting their initial offer.  They decided to wait a couple of weeks and see if the Seller changed their minds.

Approximately 3 weeks later, the Buyer decides to come back and look at the property one more time,  but on that same day the property came through as pending.     Of course, the old saying is you snooze you loose and of course I assumed that the successful Buyers had paid a higher price than my clients had offered.  Made the usually follow up to see if the Contract was strong or had a lot of contingencies.  The listing agent made the comment that she was surprised that my clients were  still interested in the property.

After finding out that the other unit was under Contract, my Buyers went ahead an made another offer on a similar property and were successful in contracting the other property.   We closed on that property and they were estatic.    But a couple of weeks,  after they closed on their new property,  the unit they originally tried to buy closed. They were really surprised to see that the Seller accepted a Contract that was  almost $14,000 less than they had offered.    I know it was not a cleaner Contract because the Buyers of that property had to close on another property.   Not sure why the Seller changed their mind and took less money with a more contingent offer. 

Would you always go back to see if the other buyers are still interested, especially when you know they made a much highter offer to your Seller?   What is a reasonable amount of time to go back to check with the first offer?  I would say there is no time limit.  Who are we working for!   

I don't know if the Seller knew that the other couple had not purchased and if they knew that they purchased another property in the same community, after finding out that the initial property had gone under Contract.   Maybe the Seller did not care, but I just cannot imagine any Seller who countered an offer initially, not wanting to get the most money they can for their property.