Apparently it's a buyer's market, but so far we have had 2 offers rejected by two different sellers in the past month. What are we doing wrong?

About two weeks ago, we placed an offer and the seller verbally countered and we verbally accepted their counter. Key word: verbally. The selling agent said he would write up the counter within a few minutes and email it to us. We never heard back.

What had happened was that within those few minutes, they got another offer for the same amount we had agreed to but the new offer had more money down. It even had the same closing date and contingencies. The seller accepted that one instead and didn't even bother to tell our realtor that they had accepted another offer.

Isn't there some sort of ethical code that requires the selling agent to follow through on their verbal?

What we cannot understand is that a similar thing happened to us this past weekend. After verbally accepting the seller's verbal counter offer, we never heard back. They got another offer in the morning for a suspiciously $3K more than ours.

Is there something that our realtor or we are doing wrong?

Any verbal counter offer has no legal bearing what so ever, and actually should not be done, only written courter offers are legal and binding if accepted. Your real estate agent has duty to send offers in.

You are most likely offering too low. It is not always a buyers market, if you are making an offer less than asking price, then they do not have to accept, in some areas houses are still selling for MORE than asking,

Also was the agent, the selling agent, or did you have a buyers agent working for you? Remember the selling agent is working for the seller, not for you.

Thanks for your response. We've actually offered in the comp range, or a little higher on the second offer. Remember, the second offer was lost ton an ffer for $3K more. We are using a buyer's agent.

Going forward we will tell our agent to not accept any verbal offers. We will only deal with written counter offers.

Your dealing with characters who do what's best for them - not you. So in future get yourself an option agreement blank form, go around to the buyers with it, give him an $1000 option fee, knock this fee off the house price [I call this the option fee recovery rule] sweet talk him into signing it, you sign it, and ABRA-CADABRA your in the drivers seat for once. Some states have cooling off periods, some have laws about these things - so get reading. Get it signed and worry afterwards.

The key thing is get in in writing ASAP. That is your REALTOR's responsibility to advise you to do that.

The second thing is was the other offers from clients of your REALTOR? He may just be using your offers to solicit other offers.

The third thing is, is your REALTOR a member of the National Association of REALTORS.
Then and only then can he or she call themselves a REALTOR. They are bound by a strict code of ethics to cover their service to you.

And finally do you have a Buyer's Representation agreement with this agent?