Waiting on a House

An update on my house search: I was very disappointed on Thursday night to find that the house I wanted seems to already be gone. My realtor contacted the realtor for the property to find out the story. Turns out the sellers have a signed offer with another party, but it is a contingent offer, the buyer has to have a signed agreement on their own house, or somehow have the means to buy this house regardless, in order to hold the sellers to the agreement. The sellers on the other hand have found a house that they want, but can not move forward until they have a firm contract on their house. Got that?

So, because I'm very interested in the house and because I haven't seen anything that suits me quite as perfectly in my price range, I decided on Friday to go ahead and submit my offer, along with $2,500 "earnest money".

Now, the way it's been explained to me, if the sellers are interested in my offer (and why wouldn't they be? It's for full-price, I'm pre-approved and I don't have to make my offer contingent on selling property), that they have to give the original people 72 hours to get a signed agreement on their house (or otherwise prove they can buy this one, regardless of whether they sell their current one). If this doesn't happen, first buyers have to release the agreement and allow the sellers to pursue the more viable offer.

So, I'm currently in the waiting stage. I don't really know what's going to happen, I don't even know when the seller's agent submitted the bid to these people and if they had any response to that. My realtor doesn't seem to think I can expect to hear anything much before Monday night at the earliest. It's extremely nerve-racking. If this falls through, then I guess it's back to the drawing board for me.