You will want to find out if this is a short sale or not. In a short sale the owner might agree to sell you the home. But, in a sense its not really up to the homeowner wheter or not they can sell it to you at this great price. If it is a short sale, keep in mind that its not uncommon to go 5 or 6 months without a "yes" or "no" answer from the bank.

Hi Garet -
Yes you definitely can inquire and should put in a back up offer if you like the property. Transactions are failing all the time with the ever changing lending guidelines and you would have first dibs. The agents have all kinds of reasons for putting in a back up requested in the listing, but it is a good sign that you could get the property if you wanted it:)

Good luck!

Here is another comments about backup offers.

If you are interested in the property then write up an offer. If the 1st position offer fails to close for whatever reason, you are automatically in line to deal with the seller.

Depending how you write up the offer, you may also have the option to rescind or withdraw your offer before it is accepted. (nothing lost) However, if you don't write an offer you would never know if could get the property or not.

In other words;
Offers gets you in the game with a way out. (inspections, rescinds, etc.)
No offers gets you nothing.

So I would go ahead and do an inquiry.

Hello Garet,
As real estate agents, we have several ways to identify pending offers. Pending is the date of mutual acceptance. There is also "Pending Feasability", "Pending Inspection" and what you were asking about, "Pending Back Up Requested" . If you are interested in a property that has received an offer but they are asking for back up offers I would certainly ask your agent to inquire about the status. There are many examples of how an offer fails to close and if this property fits your needs you would want to know right away and be in a possible position to make an offer should it not close.

Hi Garet,

Yes, you can inquire on the property. Pending bu means that there is an offer on the property however they will look at and possibly accept back up offers. One of the most common reasons in today's market for this status is short sales. Possibly the homeowner is trying for a short sale and the offer they have received is lower than expected. If they have a foreclosure date looming they will want to keep the property active for an offer that may be a little more realistic to the lien holder (bank). another possible reason could be that quite often buyers get tired of waiting around for the lien holder to give an approval on their offer and continue looking at homes and find another. They then rescind their offer and the seller is left with no buyer and their home has been left off the market all this time. There are lots of reasons for this status but the 2 mentioned are most common today.
Your agent can call and in
quire on the property and get a good idea on how things are progressing.

You bet. They could be requesting backup offer(s) for different reasons. It cannot really hurt you to find out why they are requesting a backup.