This morning we went to our realtor and got the offer together on the house we saw near Frankford. The process is very different here:

First you have to complete the paperwork to basically say you are prepared to pay X amount and can pay a deposit of another amount (average seems to be $5-10k). This deposit is held in trust and if the sale goes ahead then it goes toward the purchase price of the property, but if you back out of the contract it goes to the seller as compensation. You can add conditions into the sale, such as subject to well and septic tests, house inspection, financials etc. You then initial and sign the various paperwork and this gets sent to the vendors realtor for them to check and either agree to or amend the conditions, price offered etc. I suppose this papaerwork can go back to and forth several times before a deal is done.

As there is another conditional offer on the property we want, we have to have the vendor agree first of all to the price and conditions. If this is ok'd the person who had the first offer is notified that someone else wants the property and they have a previosuly agreed time to either finalise their side of the deal or pull out. The people we are waiting for have a 48 hour clause.