Offer
An offer to purchase is a buyer's proposal to buy property on stated terms.
Accepted without change, it becomes a binding purchase agreement. In Minnesota that is a real estate contract and it needs to be in writing.
What belongs in it#
Price, and earnest money with an escrow holder named.
Financing terms — cash or financed, and what type.
Contingencies with deadlines. Inspection, financing, appraisal, and anything specific to the property. A contingency without a date is not a protection.
What is included — appliances, fixtures, anything ambiguous. This is where disputes come from at walkthrough.
Closing and possession dates, which are frequently not the same and should be stated separately.
An expiry, after which the offer terminates automatically.
Any change makes it a counteroffer#
The rule that catches people.
A seller who accepts the offer but adjusts the closing date has not accepted. They have made a counteroffer, which terminates the original offer.
The buyer is then free to accept, counter again, or walk away entirely — and a seller who assumed a small change was a formality has released a buyer they meant to bind.
Withdrawing#
An offer can generally be withdrawn any time before acceptance is communicated.
That timing is precise. Once acceptance has been communicated the contract exists, and withdrawal becomes breach.
On distressed property#
Two adjustments worth making.
Institutional sellers use their own addenda. Bank-owned, HUD and estate sales attach seller addenda that override the standard form — on timelines, on default, on per-diem charges for a delayed closing. The addenda are the contract; the base form is not.
Authority matters more than terms. An offer to an estate signed by a family member who has not been appointed binds nobody. An offer on a property in conservatorship may need a court licence behind it.
Establishing who can actually sign, before negotiating what they will sign to, is the step that prevents weeks of wasted process.
Do not shortcut the contingencies to win#
In a competitive situation the temptation is to strip protections.
An offer with no inspection contingency on a property that has been vacant through a redemption period is a commitment to buy whatever is behind the walls.
That is a decision to make deliberately, with a price adjustment reflecting it — not a concession made in a hurry to be the strongest bid.
Deadlines run from acceptance#
A detail that decides whether contingencies protect anything.
Contingency periods almost always run from the date of acceptance, not from the date the offer was written or the date the buyer received the seller's signature.
That distinction matters when an offer sits for several days before being accepted. A ten-day inspection period agreed on the first of the month may expire sooner than the buyer assumed if acceptance came late.
Diarise every deadline the day acceptance is communicated, in writing, and confirm the dates with the other side. A contingency discovered to have expired is a contingency that never existed.