Yesterday my plan was to write an offer for $1.1m on a home that appraised for twice that amount a few years ago. My clients, Mike and Sonya, would have owned that stunning home soon. What is so hard to understand about "NOW"?

Sonya loved this home. It was the perfect home for her and Mike, their two girls, and her mother. This home, in a prestigious guard-gated community in Henderson, was one of the very few higher-end homes that have ever made our Top10. It is so unusual to find a luxury home that is selling for half of it's previous value, though it is now commonplace in the lower price ranges.

I showed Sonya the house in the afternoon, and then showed it to Mike after dark so they would be able to submit an offer in the morning. He agreed with Sonya that he wanted the home, and I agreed to call the listing agent for status in the morning.

When I reached the agent the next morning, I learned the bank was reviewing an offer but had made no decision. If we could get our offer in quickly, the bank would review ours as well. The bank was reviewing a less-than full price offer, so a full price offer would have secured the home for my clients.

Why is it that some buyers can make a quick decision and others can't no matter how urgent it is? I told Mike and Sonya immediately that we would have to write the offer in the morning. Yet into the early afternoon I was still responding to completely irrelevant questions such as, "Which bank owns the home?" and "When was the other offer submitted?".

Needless to say, the bank accepted the other offer before Mike and Sonya could even commit to a time to write the offer. I had absolutely nothing to give the bank that might have derailed this long enough to get our offer in.

My clients are heartbroken. This was the deal of the century on the perfect home, and they missed it.

This couple had only called me on the same day we viewed the home. I've since learned that they have lost out on several other homes they wanted, and that they'd been jumping from agent to agent. As a result, no one was around to alert them that this house was available when it was first listed, or to be sure they had their prequal letter handy when they needed it. I'll now work with Mike and Sonya so that they are in a position to move quickly when the right house comes along again. They need to be able to get to "yes" before the door closes.

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