I’ve seen a few instances of moving the offer date lately, and I think it has just as good a chance of backfiring as it does improving the seller’s chances of top dollar.

So why would a seller or listing agent move the offer date?

I noticed an increasing trend as we moved toward mid summer: there were fewer and fewer properties coming onto the market with a set offer date.

When the market is busy, hot, or both, it’s best to set an offer date and improve your chances of seeing two more more buyers for the property come forward at the same time.  This is a time-tested technique that certainly isn’t going away any time soon!

But I suppose as the market began its annual summer cooling, and as buyers went on vacation (mentally or physically), some sellers decided that the best strategy would be pricing at market value, or slightly over, instead of under-pricing in attempts to get multiple offers.

July was a month where I saw all kinds of houses and condos come onto the market with the MLS caption “Offers gladly accepted any time!”  It seemed like a very reasonable course of action given that we were out of the prime selling months and entering a slight lull.

But that didn’t mean ALL properties came onto the market with no offer date, and some that did have an offer date ended up playing games…

Shortly before I went away, a buyer-client of mine expressed interest in a really cool east-end loft.

The property was priced based on a recent sale in the same building, and it wasn’t a stretch to realize what the seller was doing, and exactly what his expectations were.

Offers were set to be reviewed on a Monday evening, but on Monday morning as I prepared to ready my client for the offer process, the listing agent called me and told me that offers were going to be reviewed on Wednesday evening instead.  He was essentially moving the offer “date.”

I can never be truly certain what the true catalyst for this move was, or what the reasoning and expectations behind it were, but my client and I both made the same assumption: showings were scarce and the public open house was slow.

What other reason could there be?

Offers were going to be reviewed about 5-6 days after the property had hit the open market, and now they were being pushed back two days?

It was clear to my client and I that the seller and the listing agent hadn’t received the response they expected, and perhaps the public open house over the weekend was a total bust.

The listing agent told me that the seller was “getting advice from friends and family,” and this was something I could sympathtize with.  No matter how hard we Realtors work, no matter how much experience we have, and no matter how certain we are in our guidance, we can always be completely undermined by “Uncle Jed” who lives in Winnipeg and has no clue what is going on in Toronto real estate.  All it takes is for Uncle Jed to say, “What?  That’s it?  That’s all you’re getting for your Toronto condo?”  And suddenly we’re moving mountains to adhere to Uncle Jed’s supposed logic.

In this case, I wasn’t sure if the seller was actually listening to people outside the real estate community, or if he just figured “Uh-Oh” when he had a handful of showings, but either way, the offer date was moved and my client was a bit miffed.

Two days later, our suspicions were confirmed when we produced the only offer for the property.

The seller was not happy, and the listing agent let me know.  He said, in an extremely condescending tone as if cameras were rolling in the boardroom of the real estate office we were situated in, “David……are you aware that this property is priced for multiple offers?”

I held in my laughter, since it made everybody involved look like an idiot – since there weren’t multiple offers!  The seller looked dumb for his expectations, the listing agent looked dumb for his pricing, and I looked dumb for letting these guys bully me!

Moving the offer date didn’t help at all, and I have to wonder if it was a detriment in the end.

What if there was another interested party who was prepared for Monday but went out of town on Tuesday?

What if there was another interested party but he found a better property on Tuesday or Wednesday?

What if somebody else was just pissed off at the “games” involved?

You can draw up the “what if” scenarios all night, but the fact that we had the ONLY offer shows that the seller and the listing agent didn’t benefit from moving the offer date.  We’ll never know if it worked against them, but it’s quite possible.

In my opinion, moving the offer date leaves a bad taste in buyers’ mouths.  It only serves to rock the boat, and it should only be done as an absolute “must.”

So when is moving the offer date a fail-proof idea?

Consider some of the busier neighbourhoods in the busiest periods of the year.

Let’s take Bloor West Village, for example.

There were periods last April/May when the market was so furious in this area that it seemed like the same house was being listed every day!  It wasn’t quite the case, but in the space of one week, you might see FIVE properties listed – all 3-bedroom, 2-bathroom semi-detached homes.

Now you might think that this all points towards a buyer’s market, since there’s so much like-product on the market at once, but it really helps the sellers in the end – so long as the whole process is handled appropriately.

In this case, the sellers would benefit from having ONE offer night each night for five straight days, and they would be crushed if there were, for example, three properties reviewing offers on the same night.

This is the “set em up, knock em down” theory, which is to say that each successive offer night helps the next.  The frustrated, beleaguered buyers will be more ready and willing to over-pay the night after the previous let-down.

This is when it’s acceptable to move an offer date as a seller, in fact, I think it’s encouraged.

If you spend weeks or possibly months planning your the listing of your home, and you list on Tuesday, August 9th with offers to be reviewed on Monday, August 15th, you might not be aware that the owner across the street has been planning the very same course of action!  One of, or both of you, are going to lose out if you’re listing on the same day with offers to be reviewed on the same night.

“Versatility” as a seller is often underrated, and if you find that another competing property is reviewing offers on the same night as you, then by all means – MOVE THE OFFER DATE!

But don’t move the offer date the day before offers are schedule to be reviewed!

If you bring your property out on the 9th with offers to be reviewed the 15th, and on the 10th, the guy across the road does the same – then you can move the offer date to the 16th and half the market might not even notice.

But if you’re about six hours from reviewing offers, and you suddenly feel like hitting the ‘snooze’ button on the offer clock, I would advise against it.

All is fair in love and war, but not in real estate.

Buyers are finicky and have very short memories, and the last thing you want to do is jeopardize the sale of your largest asset.