This is long, sorry. First, a little background: We had an appointment to see a house last week; the house has been on the market for a year. The first agent had printed up a brochure and had a visual tour on her website and Realtor.com. 6 mo later, the house was put with an agent the sellers had known previously, but lived in another town. Our appt. was cancelled by the Listing Agent an hour before we walked out the door. Our agent rescheduled two days later. We saw the house, went back to our agent's offer, made an offer. I wanted to put a deadline; our agent said not yet. Let's wait. This was Thursday. Friday, we got a counter offer--the list price. The listing agent also said that she had a couple from California who were scheduled to see the house the next day and they were certain to make an offer at full price. So we countered back (at $4000 less than list price. Friday night, we got a call that our offer had been accepted and congratulations, etc. On Monday, I looked up our house (to oogle it and to adore it from afar) on Realtor.com, and suddenly there was a banner proclaiming a visual tour. Not that it matters, I had been watching this house for the last 8 months, and the visual tour had been put up by the second agent. But I digress...Anyway, I called my agent and asked her if everything was in order, if the documents had been signed, because the sudden appearance of the visual tour was making me uneasy. She assurred me that everything was fine but the papers hadn't been signed, but she'd spoken with the listing agent, and the woman was getting them signed that very day. Late that night our agent called and said 1) the sellers didn't sign and 2) another offer was coming in "any minute." I said withdraw our offer, I'm out of here. But our agent said no, she was furious over this and said she would cut her commission if we would let her make an offer for full price. I still said no. She talked my husband into it. She is a top agent; I've worked with her before and I know she is honest, ethical, and smart. The sellers' agent has several million dollar listings, but since she lives in another town/county, that's all I know about her.

Twenty four hours later, the couple from CA have flown home and apparently the listing agent (who has been madly shopping our offer) keeps saying an offer is due any moment. So I told my agent to please put an end to this, I wasn't getting into a bidding war, and to give these folks a deadline. So, the deadline is almost up. I have not heard anything. I am assuming that the california people made an offer, and that we have lost the house. I know that the seller's verbal acceptance of our offer is worthless, and until the papers had been signed, it was open season on the house. But I hope some of you can give advice on what went wrong and how I can avoid another situation like this, because we're starting to house hunt today.

Always make sure that the seller has a short suspense to reply to your offer (from a few hours to maybe 24 to 48 max.) depending on their availability. If they go past the deadline, they risk losing the buyer.
With "on the fence" type of seller, it sometimes is good to let the sellers agent know that this is your first choice, and if this offer gets ignored you will move on to your second choice.

First of all the sellers apparently did not feel any urgency to respond to your offer.

You need to put an "on or before" date on your next offer or it becomes void. If the sellers still want to sell and/or negotiate you can always make another offer.

I hate getting into a bidding war; there is always another house for sale now or later.

Hopefully your next offer will be treated more kindly.