Once you're in contract, withdraw all other offers you've written for a buyer

In this sea of REOS and short sales, where it is extremely competitive in specific price brackets and locations. it is not unusual to write several offers for a client although we are discouraged from the practice of writing multiple offers.

Back in February, I had written an offer on a short sale with two lenders....as of mid-July, the second lender is still in negotiations. It is looking very unlikely that this short sale will ever be approved. At the time we wrote the offer, the listing agent said the property was under contract before but the buyer backed out. She was so sure she'd get a response right away.

So we waited...and waited...and waited.

Finally, we decided to keep looking. Because of the waiting periods for short sale, we also looked at REOS. Several offers later, after being outbid numerous times, we finally got an offer accepted on an REO (aggressive price, aggressive terms).

Interestingly enough, on the same day, we heard from an agent that our offer on a short sale was selected to be submitted to the lenders.

As a courtesy to the short sale listing agent, and to give the other buyer a fighting chance, we withdrew our offer on this short sale.

The question is: should we have kept the short sale offer in play until after we remove our contingencies on the accepted REO? My buyers are so sure and so happy about moving forward on the REO after months of looking. It seemed like withdrawing the short sale offer was the right thing to do.

Also... I remembered Broker Bryant had something to say about writing multiple offers (on REOs). Seems like a good place to post that link here, too.