how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

we consulted with the parental units, and everyone told us to go for it, and make an offer.

we're going to retain a lawyer first (advice from a friend who was a big guy in the real estate field) and then make an offer through our realtor.

So, my question to all of you is, so then what? hoe long does each offer usually sit, and how long is it before you usually receive a counter offer? Is it usually a couple days between offer / counter offer, a week, or sometimes much longer?

I just want to make sure I negotiate HARD since there are tons of repairs, and the offering price only reflects a portion of them.... however, I don't want to negotiate so hard that we lose the home... any advice/experience on that front?

thanks!!!

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

We negotiated for about 2 and a half weeks on our house. Sometimes we would go 3-4 days without hearing a counter offer. We went back and forth with counters 5 times.

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

Our negotiation took 2 hours total. I don't think that's the norm though.

We put in our first offer with our realtor, they countered, our realtor called back to see how high we would go and countered back again with a number lower than our top, they countered again at a number that was lower than our top and we accepted.

However, an offer can sit for a few days to a week.
Personally, I don't think you need to retain a lawyer yet, there isn't anything for them to do at this point. If you want to start looking so you kow who you'll use, that's different.

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

There is no set time frame. Sometimes it can take minutes, sometimes hours, sometimes days.

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

We negotiated a deal last Sunday. Asking price was $420K. Gave our RE a bid of $395K at 5:00, she presented that to the seller at 8:00, got a counter offer at 10:00 of 415K, we went to 403K, settled at 410K by 10:45.

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

Our offer/counteroffer process went on for about a week. Our first offer was about 30K below asking and we ended up agreeing on a price that was 15K below asking. We did not wait to retain an attorney to make an offer.

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

i think it depends on the situation. we just sold our house, and our negotiation took a total of a couple hours. it was just a bunch of phone calls back and forth between our agent and us, and the buyers agent and them. i think within a couple hours it was all settled. this was on a monday evening, so the next morning i think there were papers faxed over for us to sign to make the offer "official".
BUT, then further in the process, after the buyers did the home inspection, there was tons of negotiation with how much money they wnated taken off due issues that were found during the inspection. this took a couple weeks, but i think thats because their lawyer is a family frend and doesn't really do real estate law so he wasn't familiar with the whole process....

Re: how long does an offer / $ negotiation take?

thanks so much everyone....

we really want this place..... I hope this works out... I know things can sour at any moment until closing is complete