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Houses sell all the time after multiple offers and sometimes not at all, even in the presence of a full asking-price offer.

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Indeed, however an offer by itself doesn't create anything binding. One of the other critical pieces is the acceptance of that offer. Otherwise we'd have situations where someone was forced to sell their house simply for being in the presence of an offer!

The point is that setting an "asking price" does not in itself constitute a binding offer.

Nobody is forced to sell their house to a particular buyer because that buyer emailed back with "accept" in response to an inquiry about the price.

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