A quick note on offer deadlines. It’s become in vogue for agents to include the phrase “Seller reserves the right to accept an offer before the deadline”. I just want to go on record saying that this is either really silly or possibly very strategic, but likely the former.

I mean, let’s break it down: What are you really saying here? The seller doesn’t have to “reserve” any right to accept an offer. What the agent is saying is that if someone wants to make a very strong offer they’ll consider it. Which is basically saying, screaming actually, that they would prefer that someone come in early with a compelling offer. So why bother having a deadline?

I think it works against the sellers interest to do it this way. Hear me out:

If I were the buyer agent representing an interested party and we made it to the deadline without someone writing a monster offer in advance, I may infer that the interest isn’t as competitive. Surely anyone willing to put a bid 5-20% over the list price would have already shown their hand with an early offer. They didn’t and now I may want to recalculate how I’m gauging the competition.

It also makes the agent seem weak, someone who isn’t in control of the transaction. They’re asking for a buyer or buyer agent to take control by forcing the them (the listing agent and seller) to react to an early offer. If any agent does this repeatedly, no one should take anything they say seriously.

Is there a situation where this does make sense? Idk, maybe. But it would be a pretty savvy play.

The listing agent may be feeling shaky about the price or the early interest. By signaling that the seller would entertain an offer before your arbitrary deadline, they’re signaling to buyers who may be suffering from the fatigue of many lost bids and time spent poring over homes that they’ll never get. This is telling buyers to put a strong, above list, offer on the table, perhaps knowing that your listing’s interest levels are lower than normal? I don’t know about this latter strategy, but I can certainly see it working in the right circumstances.

But in general, I find the use of this phrase to be confusing. When we, as listing agents, decide to impose an offer deadline, we have a conversation with our sellers. Either the sellers are committed to seeing the deadline through or they’re not, in which case, we shouldn’t have an offer deadline at all.