How to read an offer on your house
By Dan Jones ·
Bottom line: an offer is four things, and I read them in the opposite order to most sellers: conditions first, then dates, then deposit, and price last, because the conditions decide whether the price ever arrives. Each condition is a way the sale can end, and the days attached to it are how long you stay exposed. Dates that fit your own move are worth real money. A substantial deposit delivered on time is a buyer putting something behind their words. So a lower offer with one short condition and a strong deposit regularly beats a higher one carrying three. When more than one offer arrives, BC rules protect you in two ways worth knowing: your REALTOR must present every offer to you, and the terms of one buyer’s offer cannot be shared with another buyer without your prior consent.
I am Dan Jones, a REALTOR with Royal LePage Locations West in Penticton, licence number 1118346, licensed since 2004. I have read a lot of offers at a lot of kitchen tables, and the most expensive mistake I see is the same one every time: read the price, feel the relief, skim the rest.
I am not a lawyer. Contract wording, and what happens when a buyer does not perform, are questions for one.
Read it backwards
The price is at the top of the page and it is the number you have been waiting for. That is exactly why it should be the last thing you weigh.
Everything else on the offer tells you how likely that price is to turn into money in your account, and when.
Conditions: how the sale can end
Every condition, or subject, is a door the buyer can walk out of. Look at what each one is and how many days it stays open.
Financing. The most common, and usually reasonable. The risk is that the buyer’s lender declines, or that the lender’s appraisal comes in below the price and the buyer cannot make up the gap.
Inspection. Also reasonable, and also the condition most often used to renegotiate. Something real turns up, or something ordinary gets presented as if it were serious. Both happen. A pre-listing inspection is the cheapest way to take the surprise out of it.
Strata documents. On a strata property, the buyer needs time to read the minutes, the Form B and the depreciation report. That is legitimate and it takes days, not hours. What they are looking for is worth knowing as a seller too.
Sale of the buyer’s own home. The weakest condition of the lot, because it makes your sale depend on a house you have never seen, priced by someone you have never met, selling in a market neither of you controls. It is not automatically a reason to decline. It is a reason to ask hard questions. Selling first or buying first covers how these are usually handled.
The number of days. Five days on an inspection and ten on financing is a buyer who has done their homework. Twenty one days on everything is a buyer keeping their options open at your expense.
Dates: when your life actually changes
A BC contract carries three dates.
Completion is when the money and the title change hands.
Possession is when the buyer gets the keys, commonly the day after completion.
Adjustment is the date from which costs such as property taxes are divided between you.
If you are buying another home at the same time, dates are where an offer can be worth more than its price. An offer that completes the week after your purchase completes saves you bridge financing, a second move, or both. An offer that completes a month too early can mean renting in between. Making the dates work when you sell and buy covers that problem in detail.
Deposit: what the buyer is prepared to show
Two things matter: how much, and how quickly.
A substantial deposit delivered promptly is a buyer committing real money. A small deposit is not necessarily a warning, but when two offers are otherwise close it is one of the clearest signals of which buyer intends to complete.
The contract states when the deposit is due, in hours, days or business days after acceptance, and who holds it. In BC that is usually the brokerage, in trust, as a stakeholder, which means as a neutral party pending completion rather than on behalf of either of you.
Deposit deadlines matter. BC courts have treated them strictly, and a buyer who pays late can lose the deal. Whether a particular contract has ended, though, is a legal question. Do not accept another offer on the assumption that the first one has fallen away without talking to a lawyer.
Price: last, not least
Once you understand the conditions, the dates and the deposit, price becomes a meaningful number rather than a hopeful one.
Weigh it against recent comparable sales, not against your list price. A list price is a starting position. An offer at list with three conditions and a small deposit can be a weaker offer than one below list that is nearly certain.
Two offers side by side
Illustrative figures, not a real sale.
| Offer A | Offer B | |
|---|---|---|
| Price | $815,000 | $800,000 |
| Deposit | $10,000 within 3 days | $40,000 within 24 hours |
| Conditions | Financing, inspection, sale of buyer’s home | Inspection, 5 days |
| Completion | 90 days, buyer’s choice | The date you asked for |
Offer A is $15,000 higher on paper. It also depends on the buyer’s own house selling, carries three ways to end, and puts completion where it suits them rather than you.
Offer B is lower, and if the inspection is clean, it is very likely to complete on your timeline with a buyer who has put four times the deposit behind it.
If Offer A collapses six weeks in, you are relisting a house that buyers now know fell through, and they will ask why. Many sellers would take Offer B, or counter Offer A to remove the sale condition. Neither answer is automatic, which is the point of reading the whole page.
When there is more than one offer
This is where sellers most often worry about what is and is not allowed.
Every offer comes to you. Your REALTOR must advise you of all offers submitted on your property, including counter-offers from a buyer.
Each offer comes with a remuneration disclosure. You should see what the brokerage expects to be paid in connection with each offer, and in a multiple offer situation all of those disclosures have to be made before you accept any of them.
Terms stay private unless you say otherwise. The terms of one buyer’s offer cannot be disclosed to another buyer without your prior consent, preferably in writing. Some real estate boards also have bylaws prohibiting disclosure of competing prices and terms. And if you have agreed with a buyer to keep their offer confidential, nothing can be disclosed at all.
What I tell sellers in a multiple offer situation: ask every buyer for their best terms, not just their best price. The offer that wins on price by loading up conditions is the one most likely to come back to you in two weeks.
After you accept
Two things are still ahead.
Most residential buyers in BC have three business days to rescind for 0.25% of the price, and that right cannot be waived. How the rescission period works.
Then subject removal. Until the buyer removes subjects in writing, you have a buyer who intends to complete, not a sale. What happens once your house is listed covers that stage.
What I do
I lay every offer out the same way, conditions, dates, deposit, price, so you are comparing like with like. I tell you which one I would take and why, and where I think a counter would improve it. The decision is yours, and it should be made with the whole page in front of you.
Rules on offer presentation and disclosure above come from BCFSA and are current as of October 2026. Contract questions are for a lawyer. Confirm anything you plan to rely on.
If you have an offer in hand, or expect one soon, email me at dano007@shaw.ca or call 250.488.0226.