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How to Handle Offers When Selling Your Home

Receiving an offer is one of the most consequential moments in a property sale. Here's what you need to know to evaluate it clearly and make a sound decision.

Most vendors spend months thinking about preparing their home, choosing an agent, and setting a price. Very few spend much time thinking about what happens when an offer actually arrives. Yet the decisions you make in those first few hours — accept, reject, counter, or wait — have a direct bearing on your final result. Understanding the mechanics before an offer lands makes it far easier to think clearly when it matters.

How to read an offer

An offer in Queensland is typically made by a buyer completing and signing a standard REIQ contract of sale, which your agent then presents to you. The key elements to look at are price, conditions, the finance clause, and the settlement date. Do not just look at the number at the top.

Price is the starting point, but it is not the whole picture. An offer $30,000 below your target with no conditions attached may produce a better outcome than an offer $10,000 above it with a finance clause, a building and pest clause, and a 90-day settlement.

Conditions are clauses that give the buyer an exit if something does not go their way. The most common are a finance clause (the buyer's bank needs to approve the loan), a building and pest inspection clause (the buyer has the right to walk away if the inspection reveals problems), and occasionally a subject-to-sale clause (the buyer needs to sell their own property first). Each condition introduces a period during which the buyer can withdraw from the contract without significant penalty. The more conditions, the greater your exposure to the deal collapsing.

The finance clause typically gives the buyer 14 to 21 days to obtain formal finance approval from their lender. During this period the property is effectively off the market. If finance is declined, the buyer can exit and you start again. A buyer who has already obtained pre-approval, or who is paying cash, presents far less risk on this front.

The settlement date is when the property changes hands and you receive the balance of the purchase price. Standard settlement in Queensland is 30 to 45 days from the contract date, though this is negotiable. A longer settlement can suit vendors who need time to secure their next property; a shorter one may suit vendors who have already purchased or who need funds quickly. Settlement dates are a useful negotiating lever beyond price.

What the cooling-off period means for you as a seller

In Queensland, residential property buyers have a five-business-day cooling-off period after signing a contract. During this period, the buyer can withdraw from the sale — but they must pay a penalty equal to 0.25% of the purchase price. On a $900,000 property, that is $2,250.

The cooling-off period is a buyer protection, not a seller protection. As the vendor, you cannot cancel the contract during the cooling-off period. You should be aware that until the cooling-off period has passed (or the buyer has waived it in writing), the sale is not fully certain. Most buyers do not exercise the cooling-off right, and your agent should be able to give you a read on how committed a specific buyer appears. Properties sold at auction do not have a cooling-off period.

When to accept, when to counter, when to wait

There is no universal answer to this, but the framework is straightforward. Accept if the offer is within a range you consider fair given current market evidence and your personal situation, and the conditions are acceptable. Counter-offer if the price is below where you need to be but the buyer appears genuine and the conditions are reasonable. Wait if you are within the first week of a campaign and believe the market is likely to produce stronger interest.

Waiting is a legitimate strategy when you have strong campaign momentum — multiple groups attending open homes, genuine inquiries, and signs that more than one buyer is tracking the property. Accepting the first offer quickly in this context can leave money on the table. But waiting when buyer interest is thin, or when personal circumstances require a timely sale, is rarely rewarded. Your agent should be able to tell you honestly which situation you are in.

To counter-offer in Queensland, your agent signs back the contract at a different price or with amended conditions. The buyer then has the choice to accept, reject, or counter again. This back-and-forth can involve multiple rounds and is normal. There is no legal limit on the number of rounds. The key discipline is to move quickly — offers made by motivated buyers can cool if the process drags on for days without resolution.

How multiple-offer situations work

When more than one buyer is interested in a property at the same time, you have a multiple-offer situation. This is one of the better problems to have as a vendor, but it needs to be managed carefully. The agent's job is to give each interested buyer an opportunity to put their best offer forward, without creating an environment that feels like a secret auction or that exposes you to legal risk.

In a multiple-offer situation, your agent will typically contact all interested parties and invite them to submit their best and final offer by a specific deadline. You then review all offers simultaneously. You are under no obligation to accept the highest price — you can factor in conditions, settlement dates, and your read on each buyer's reliability. You can only formally accept one offer at a time.

If you are running a private treaty campaign (not an auction), be careful about any suggestion of openly pitting buyers against each other in real time. This creates both legal risk and the possibility of buyers withdrawing in frustration. A structured, deadline-based best-and-final process is cleaner for everyone and consistently produces strong outcomes.

What unconditional offers mean in practice

An unconditional offer has no conditions attached. No finance clause, no building and pest clause, no subject-to-sale requirement. Once you accept an unconditional offer and the cooling-off period passes (or is waived by the buyer), the contract is binding. This is the strongest type of offer a buyer can make.

Unconditional offers are typically made by cash buyers, buyers who have already secured formal finance approval, or buyers who are prepared to accept the risk of forgoing inspections. They are more common in competitive markets and at auctions, where unconditional contracts are standard. For a fuller explanation of what unconditional offers mean and when buyers make them, see the unconditional offer guide.

As a vendor, an unconditional offer at a price slightly below your highest conditional offer is often worth serious consideration. The certainty it provides — no risk of the deal collapsing during a finance or inspection period — has real financial value, particularly if you have already committed to purchasing your next property.

The agent's role in the negotiation

Your agent is not just a conduit for paperwork. Their job in the offer phase is to qualify the buyer (understand their financial position, how they are funding the purchase, and how committed they are), present the offer with a clear recommendation, negotiate on your behalf without creating conflict or burning the relationship with the buyer, and manage the timeline so the process moves efficiently.

A good agent will tell you honestly whether they think an offer is the best this buyer will go to, whether there is room to push, and whether waiting for another offer is a reasonable expectation given where the campaign is. They will also tell you when accepting quickly is the right call — sometimes the best buyer in the market has made a fair first offer and counter-offering aggressively will cause them to walk away and buy something else.

Approach offers as a negotiation that requires both parties to feel they have reached a fair outcome. Vendors who insist on squeezing every last dollar from buyers who are already at their limit sometimes end up with a collapsed deal and a relisting that carries reputational cost. The best sale is one where a well-qualified buyer transacts at a price that reflects genuine market value and both parties proceed confidently to settlement.