+1

To me a handshake means a deal, obviously shit can happen but if you just take B's offer that's bullshit because you already agreed with A. If you get an offer from B, you call A and give him "X" days to seal the deal with financing and make it official.

My revised strategy. Take your backup bid, if it's better than the original bid, stick to your handshake deal, but also make a deal with your neighbor for him to play his stereo too loud or to act stinkin' drunk and swearing in the driveway and scare the original bidder away. That way you can be good for your word AND still get the best bid! :)

Sorry, guys! FYI, a little more back story for ya...The house has been on the market for two months now. I have hosted five open houses in this time frame, very good ones; lots of parties who liked the home but never heard from again.. some repeats then never heard from again.. but never ONE offer of any sort in the two months time. This past weekend I hosted TWO open houses. One on Saturday and one on Sunday. We had ONE party total in the two days combined. Disaster. lol anyhow, back to the rest of it.

After I posted this last night I anticipated some small discussion on this but not this much. My brain was racking big time last night and I definitely had some hindsight moments where I wish things were done differently. My best friend did FSBO and it went very smoothly in their negotiations and the handshake was fine. If I had to do it all over again I would have done the "Put the offer in writing and we'll get back to you in 24 hours or so thereafter.". Obviously that did not happen and this blame lies on me.

I spoke with 'A' this morning and they had everything drawn up and ready for us to pick up at lunch time. I picked up the offer to purchase and told them I'll have my Real Estate guy look things over and make sure everything works. We had discussed the closing date, earnest money at our handshake. He gave us $1500 as earnest money, an offer to purchase that was what we agreed upon and agreeable for the most part. There was one or two things I'd change, instead of 30 days for contingency on inspection, I'd want 15 days and I can't even remember the other, it was so minor.

I had party B walk through with her husband tonight and after their walk-thru I flat out told them if they're not interested tell me now. They're interested and will get back to us in the morning....

From the get-go I was all about honoring the original commitment and I'm still all about honoring. My wife on the other hand is all about hearing the offer (if there is one) and going from there. I spoke with a lot of other close people and they're all for us listening, too. I'm with the majority here that we should accept the original and move on.. if it falls through, it falls through and we go with the next offer.

For me, if he gave you earnest money at the handshake and you discussed that many of the details, then you honor A's agreement and for me, it becomes a no brainer. B's should be a secondary offer. Seems like with earnest money exchanging hands, it would be alot easier to prove out something in court if they wanted to be dicks.

I had the wrong impression. I thought the handshake agreement was nothing more than "Would you take $162,500 for it?" and nothing else which is why I said have B come through because there are any number of details that could have made it unacceptable beyond just the price.

Exactly - A gets first opportunity because you have a handshake deal. If he doesn't deliver his end of the bargain, it's an open market again. It also doesn't mean you can't continue to show the house explaining that there's already an offer on it and he has a very short duration first right of refusal.

This to me is a very simple situation that is getting overcomplicated for you by web philosophers.

No. We're all saying the same thing, just with slightly different language.

The earnest money came with the offer to purchase yesterday. The handshake was nothing but a handshake with an agreed amount. We discussed that there would need to be earnest money with the offer to purchase. Sorry for the confusion. Doesn't change much anyways.

I guess I'm wired differently, but I cannot see how anyone could think like this. I can see your wife being pissed off that you took an offer that was lower. I can't see how someone can say it's ok to listen to other offers after you made a deal.

When people say "morals" are on a steep decline, I usually laugh. I think they've always been about the same. But seeing people who actually think it's acceptable to sell their word for 5k? I have a very hard time understanding where they are coming from.

To me there isn't any hearing of another offer and going from anywhere until this deal runs its course.

FWIW: I think the solutions to these problems are usually pretty damned simple. Just reverse the situation. Would your wife be thrilled if she made an offer, signed papers, handed over money and then she was told to go pound sand?

Glad to see you are at least handling things the right way.

I've seen this phrase a couple of times in the last couple of days so I just had to go look it up

Urban Dictionary: pound sand

Learned my new thing every day from FOFC and it's not even 9:30

SI

Good for you that you've got an offer you can live with. Earnest money is a much better arrangement as it keeps both parties interested in seeing the deal through.

For those curious..

Couple B came through the house last night, I told them if they're interested to let me know fairly quickly. They said they would get back to us sometime today...

During the day today we decided to just move on without waiting for Couple B and accepted the offer around 2:00 pm today.

Couple B got back to me at 9:00 pm tonight saying they were not going to put an offer in anyways. Apparently it was between our house and another one; but it did not matter as we already submitted our papers.

All in all a good day and I can feel good by standing by the handshake without worrying about if an offer came in.

We also put an offer on a house today as well. Good shit. Karma will hopefully treat us well with this offer.