bidding wars and back up offers

Wars are costly.
If you really like the apartment, I would submit best offer, have all financials ready, and MOST importantly require an executed contract within 10 business days or walk.
Ignore the bidding war aspect, no good will come of it.
10 business days initally may sound excessive but it is not enough for the seller to go out and get another concrete offer and put it in motion in time to risk your bird in the hand.
If the "war" is legitimate, the other buyer(s) may not like the pressure being put on them to have their ducks in a row. If someone's gonna just outright overpay there is nothing you can do anyway.

10 days is way excessive--i once required 36 hours and did that deal--in fact i had a contract from a sponsor for another property fizzling on my desk--told the new seller that, and that if they wanted to sell to get going--they did--contracts are boilerplate, but for minor changes that require a phone call or two--print em, messenger em, sign em--

agreed that one should not engage war games--put reasonable, say 4 day, limit on delivery of contract and be prepared to walk away

4 days is not enough either, your counting on lawyers on both sides dropping everything they're doing to get their shit together. It doesn't happen in the real world 99% of the time. It's too big a gun to the head as well and won't get you what you want, a legitimate chance to buy the apartment.
It signals everything.....your confident, your able, your at your limit, and your likely going to be the one that will close. It also gives the seller the necessary 2/3 days to digest your right for them.

Particularly today, ability to close is as important as price.

I went through this a few times in recent weeks. You realize that an accepted offer means nothing. All about the contracts. Back up seems to variously mean: make your best and final (bidding war scenario) or truly you are back up (if original falls through at contract phase, will go with you). I find the first scenario very unethical, but happens.

Co-op or condo? I would guess that back-up offers becoming accepted are more common in co-ops, where board approval is always a bit of a wild card.

I know of two situations where a back-up offer was accepted.

In situation #1, the board gave strong indications that the buyer's large dog would be an issue. The seller chose a matching offer from a person with no pets to have a greater chance at closing.

In situation #2, the (immature) buyer had failed to ask important questions, like sublet policy, before bidding and backed out after due diligence. The back-up was then offered the apartment at the higher price that the original buyer offered and took it.

Especially in a co-op, a backup offer can become the accepted bid. (1) Buyer does not pass the board; (2) Buyer does not get financing; (3) Buyer makes outrageous demands, takes too long to close; (4) Buyer gets cold feet, especially if buyer won in a bidding war. I have seen backup offers trump the original accepted offer in each of these scenarios.

1. do back ups ever get the apartment?

Sometimes. But of course it comes with the unintended consequence of higher uncertainty as the backup buyer who now becomes primary buyer cant help but wonder, 'what killed the first deal'? Bldg issue? Cold feet?

2. whats the deal with "back up offers"?

When multiple offers are submitted, or when an accepted offer is close to signing after due diligence, its common for there to be backup offers. Clearly the seller is proceeding with the highest and best offer, but if that doesnt work out, the 2nd highest and best interested buyer certainly should get a crack at signing a contract for an apt they clearly desire. But it takes time for a buyers atty to conduct due diligence, so its entirely possible 'other' offers come in or already came in.

3. another place we're interested in told us that if they accept an offer this week, they'd only show to us as "a back up", which again, feels meaningless.

I disagree. I think thats quite a meaningful sign that there is a deal accepted and the buyer atty is reviewing offering plan, contract of sale, 2yrs financials, and board minutes. It can take 5-6 business days to review all of the following, especially if your dealing with slow mgmt and or receive a few items 2-3 business days into the atty process. If there was no deal about to be signed, I would think the seller and their broker would be very eager to entertain your offer. With that said, written offers must be submitted to the seller, so if you really want this place, whats the harm with sending it in. If its indeed a higher and better offer, at that point the seller needs to risk a) disrupting a deal already in the works in order to b) begin a brand new deal from scratch. Some buyers hate these kinds of games, and will walk if something doesnt feel right. So there are risks involved for seller

4. also, is it common in bidding wars for brokers to offer no information about where other bids are?

The broker should never disclose where competing offers are in a multiple offer situation. Why should one buyer get more information over another. How things work out there, may be a different story. But the point of a best n final with multiple strong offers submitted, is to give each buyer a fair shot and end the game right there and then, to give the winning buyer reasonable time (say 5 biz days upon receipt of ALL diligence docs) to produce a signed contract + escrow deposit. Done. By pinning 2-3 buyers against each other by providing hints, seems risky and unfair to me. Since a seller broker works for the seller, they should never disclose actual bid amounts to other buyers as that conflicts with their efforts to get their client the highest and best offer the open market can produce. If that deal falls through, now a few buyers know where the bid came in prior to closing and becoming public record. Thats powerful information for a new buyer to have, and if I were the seller, I would certainly not want them to know

thank you all for your feedback. it's unfortunate what a slimy game real estate can feel like sometimes. it sounds like what really matters is getting a contract signed and that before that, nothing is really meaningful. this leads me to believe we should put offers in on apartments even if we aren't 100% sure we want them...what's the harm in pulling out? we're currently considering raising our offer on an apartment that we have a few concerns about. i know it's bad form, but frankly "bad form" seems the name of the game with this stuff...