Competing offers side by side, with nothing ranked
With two or more live offers on the table the surface becomes the comparison: terms down the side, offers across the top, and the strongest value in each row marked. Highest price, most earnest money, cash, the soonest close, the fewest concessions asked, the fewest contingencies. Only the live round of each negotiation is compared, because setting a superseded round beside a current one would mislead the person reading it.
There is deliberately no overall score and no ranking. Which offer is best depends on what the seller cares about, a cash close four weeks sooner against thirteen thousand dollars more, and a confident-looking composite would quietly make that decision on their behalf. Raven marks the strongest number in each row and stops there, and says so on the grid itself.
- Price, earnest money, financing, close date, concessions, inspection period, and contingency count as rows
- The strongest value in each row marked, and nothing summed into a rank
- Only each negotiation's live round is compared, never a superseded one
- Money stored exactly as it was entered, with nothing rounded on the way in
An offer is terms, not an attachment
Submitting an offer records what was actually offered: purchase price, earnest money, down payment, financing type, the close and possession dates, seller concessions, the inspection period in days, and the three contingencies agents read first, appraisal, financing, and sale of home. Anything the fields do not cover is written out and shown as written.
That is what makes the rest of it possible. A document can be read but not compared. A row of stored terms can be set beside another one, measured against the round before it, and laid out for a seller without anyone retyping a number.
- Price, earnest money, down payment, and concessions held as money, exactly as entered
- Financing as conventional, FHA, VA, cash, or other
- Close date, possession date, and the inspection period in days
- Appraisal, financing, and sale-of-home contingencies each on their own
- Free text for whatever the fields do not capture, shown verbatim
- An offer you are still preparing is a draft, yours alone, and never appears in the room
A counter is a new round, and the old one stays
Countering does not edit the offer it answers. It writes a new round pointing back at the one it responds to, numbered inside the negotiation, and the answered offer is marked as countered rather than replaced. So the question every agent asks, what did they offer before they countered, has an answer months later instead of a scroll through an inbox.
Each round also states what changed against the round it answered: up or down by an amount, close date sooner or later by a number of days, a contingency added or dropped. That one line is the thing being looked for, and working it out from two near-identical documents is work nobody should be doing under a deadline.
- Counters thread by round number and by the offer they answer; nothing is overwritten
- What changed since the round before, stated on the round
- Every move written to an append-only history: who acted, when, and the terms at that moment
- Two responses at once cannot both land; the second is told the offer was already answered
Nobody misses an offer, and nothing lapses unwatched
An offer is time-critical in a way almost nothing else in a transaction is. Every move, submitted, countered, accepted, declined, withdrawn, and expired, reaches the other participants in the app and by email, and the email leads with the real terms so it can be acted on from a phone. Whoever made the move is left off it, because nobody needs an email about what they just did.
An offer can carry an expiry. Twelve hours out Raven sends one warning, once, and when the deadline passes it marks the offer expired and tells both sides, recorded as the system's act rather than a person's. An offer that runs out because nobody looked is a failure of the tool.
There is one more clock, and it is on your own side. Before a buyer's offer goes out, Raven reads their file back to you: a pre-approval or proof of funds aging out of its window, or a close date far enough away that the letter would lapse partway through escrow. It names which date it is working from, and it is never shown to the other side.
- In-app and email on every move, with the terms in the message itself
- One warning twelve hours before an offer lapses, and only one
- The lapse recorded as the system's act, with the terms sent to both sides
- A private pre-submission read of your own buyer's pre-approval or proof of funds
What accepting does, and what it does not
Marking an offer accepted records where the negotiation stands. It is not the contract. Acceptance is executed the way it always was, through the purchase contract signed in Raven Ink, and the signed document remains the operative instrument. Raven will not tell you that a button formed an agreement.
The room is read-only on this, on purpose. An outside party sees the submitted offers and their history, and cannot accept, counter, or withdraw from a link. A guest link is a bearer token sitting in an email: the right authority for reading a transaction you are party to, and the wrong authority for accepting a purchase offer. The other side responds through their own agent, who acts under a real login.
- Accepted is the state of the negotiation, never a substitute for a signature
- The purchase contract signs through Raven Ink and files back into the transaction
- Outside parties read the offers and respond through their own agent
- Submitting is what makes an offer part of the negotiation; a draft is not in the room
Frequently asked questions
What is real estate offer management?
It is holding the offer itself, rather than the document that carries it, inside the transaction. Raven stores an offer as terms: price, earnest money, down payment, financing, close and possession dates, concessions, the inspection period, and the appraisal, financing, and sale-of-home contingencies. Every counter, acceptance, decline, withdrawal, and expiry is recorded in order, so the negotiation is readable long after it ends.
Can Raven compare several offers for a seller?
Yes. When two or more offers are live, the terms become rows and the offers become columns, and the strongest value in each row is marked: highest price, most earnest money, cash, soonest close, fewest concessions asked, fewest contingencies. Only the live round of each negotiation is compared. It is the spreadsheet a listing agent builds by hand before a seller meeting, drawn from the offers themselves.
Why does Raven not rank the offers overall?
Because the answer is the seller's, not the software's. A cash offer at less money against a longer close at a better price is a judgment about what that seller needs, and a single confident-looking score would make it for them while looking like arithmetic. Raven marks the strongest value in each row, says on the grid that it does not rank, and leaves the call where it belongs.
Does accepting an offer in Raven create a contract?
No, and Raven never presents it that way. Accepted is the room's view of where the negotiation stands. Acceptance is executed through the purchase contract signed in Raven Ink, and the signed document remains the operative instrument.
Can my client or the agent on the other side accept an offer from the room?
No. Outside parties see the submitted offers and their history and nothing more. A guest link is a bearer token in an email, which is the right authority for reading a transaction you are party to and the wrong authority for accepting a purchase offer. The other side responds through their own agent, who acts under a real login.
What happens to an offer nobody answers?
If it carries an expiry, Raven warns twelve hours before it lapses, once, and then marks it expired when the deadline passes and tells both sides with the terms in the message. The lapse is recorded as the system's act rather than a person's. An offer with no expiry stays live until somebody answers it.
Can I see what an offer looked like before it was countered?
Yes. A counter is a new round rather than an edit, so every earlier round is still there with its own terms, its own timestamps, and who sent it. The history is append-only: a correction is a new entry, and nothing is rewritten after the fact.
Are offers included?
Yes, on the Raven Agent and Raven Broker plans. Offers are part of the transaction itself rather than an add-on. See the pricing page for current rates.