how long to wait for a contract?

Here's the whole rundown: http://www.urbandigs.com/2009/11/knowing_when_a_deal_may_be_run.html

I'd expect a contract from the seller to be provided in absolutely no more than 3-5 work days.

The seller has 'accepted' your bid but meanwhile are trying to get a better offer. Tell them "24 hours or I withdraw my offer" but bear in mind that you have nothing until both sides have signed that contract.

hurting, you should be looking elsewhere right up until the time that you have an executory contract--that means signed and countersigned. [Often erroneously called a "fully executed contract," which you do not have until closing day.] If I were working with you I'd still be sending you apartments to look at.

drdrd is absolutely right. Noah's article on this referenced by Lofty is super helpful too.

Hope it all works out great for you!

{Manhattan real estate agent.}

Agree with Kylewest.

Do keep in mind however this is probably the worst 2 weeks of the year to rely on a seller and their attorney to get a contract to you.

This might sound naive, but why not have your broker call the seller's agent and find out when the contract will be sent. If you've finally found the apartment that you want to buy, why just walk away if the contract isn't sent in 3-5 days or does that put you in a poor bargaining position where they'll want a higher bid from you to buy the apartment?

depends. Do you have a deal sheet yet?

ali r.
{downtown broker}

Ali, I don't even have an apartment yet. Just wondering why no one suggested that a phone call be made to either the seller's broker or seller's attorney. I was thinking that the buyer may really want the apartment and not want to walk away so quickly. But if I'm getting off track, please disregard my post.

Lobster
There is absolutely nothing wrong with your post. In fact it's the right advise only Hurting hasn't told us how long it's been since the accepted offer to judge whether the call is warranted.

Lob, I asked about a deal sheet because everyone's presumption on this thread seems to be that there IS a seller's attorney, whereas IMHE the #1 reason for late contracts, coming in even ahead of seller duplicity/shopping the unit, is that the seller doesn't HAVE an attorney, and is running around trying to hire one.

Certainly it's worth calling the seller's broker to put a fire under her, but if you don't trust the other side, you're not necessarily going to trust their representations.

ali r.
{downtown broker}

thanks all. i will keep looking then, felt a little dubious to do so, but I'm not sure what is going on with seller. it's been 6 days since "accepted offer" and not a lot of confidence in what they're saying.

Hurting
Well what is it they are they saying? Is the lawyer out of town on vacation?
Not a good excuse but the only somewhat palatable one to tell them to find another lawyer.

I would tell the if you don't have a contract by friday that you are rescinding your offer.

And if they want to play games you can too. Send a friend to look at the apt and have them offer 10% below your offer. :)

6 days? You probably don't have a deal, hurting.

Some "Truth Seeker," send a friend to lie for you. Quite apart from the dishonesty of that, unless the friend is a professional level actor they will never fool a broker who's got any horse sense. (Of course, some brokers are stupid. Some of everything is stupid. But not all.)

This is not playing games, people. It's the way of the law of New York State. We do not sign "binders" in this state.

You need a contract signed by both parties to have a deal. This is a wonderful thing, because it gives both parties a chance to cool off and make sure they know what the hell they are doing.

You may not agree with this, you come from somewhere else where they do things differently--OK, fine. But you're here now.

If the seller/seller broker keeps telling you they are going forward and they aren't, with no good explanation, that's caddish. But if they're getting other offers they didn't expect of course they are going to look at them and drag their heels on yours a little bit.

And when you go to sell, you will expect your broker to do exactly the same thing. And would be mad at them if they didn't.

{Manhattan real estate agent.}

The reason why I was interested in this question was that we had a situation where we saw an apartment that we liked and made an initial offer and then two more higher offers and all the offers were rejected. My broker was told by the seller's broker that they received a much higher offer than we made. We waited a few weeks and watched the listing. SE and the RE website for the apartment didn't indicate that the apartment was in contract. So I asked my broker to check with the seller's broker to see if they reached a contract which the seller's broker said that they had. This was about 2-3 months ago and to date, the apartment is not listed as "in contract" although the RE sites indicate that the apartment was off the market. I felt that in my case, I had established the ceiling that I would go to on this apartment so I had nothing to lose by calling. And Ali, you can call me by my first name Michelle instead of Lob.

Fluter
I was mostly joking, if as Hurting indicated "it's been 6 days since "accepted offer" and not a lot of confidence in what they're saying." means they are telling some kind of story and threw the first lying stone.

If they strung Hurting along really badly(which I doubt) there is nothing wrong with a spank back if you're the sort that would waste such energy on such.

Other than telling someone the attorney is out of town,death in family, there is no proper excuse.

"If the seller/seller broker keeps telling you they are going forward and they aren't, with no good explanation, that's caddish."

It's not caddish it's Kaddish (jewish mourner's prayer). Mourn your find's death quickly and find the next place.

Michelle, brokers tend not to flip a listing over from "available" until the last possible minute. that's against official REBNY policy, but in practice ... For one thing, the computer systems don't play nicely with each other, so if you don't sell a listing -- say you get a board turndown -- it is really hard to flip it back. (Not that I would ever do this, but I did spend half an hour on the phone on Tuesday with three different Corcoran people, trying to figure out why Taxi -- their computer system -- wasn't picking up a CS from OLR -- my computer system).

If seller's broker says there's a contract and your broker has called, he/she should certainly update it in the system because that's good etiquette. But even minus that, the fact that it's not being updated -- it probably is indeed being sold. I wouldn't be surprised if you checked ACRIS in a few weeks and saw that it had sold.

ali