Originally Posted by PornMD

First off, a domain expiring in 7 days means nothing. A lot of people auto-renew domains on the day of expiration.

Expect to wait about 60-75 days after expiration. Very few registrars are less than that, plus it can depend on the domain extension too, but in general there's 60 days after the domain expires, then the pending delete phase of about 6-7 days. Also, depending on the registrar, certain backorder services have priority to get them, i.e. if 1 backorder occurs there, a million backorders could happen elsewhere that wouldn't matter because that backorder service has priority to catch names from the particular registrar.

Also, at places like Pool, SnapNames and NameJet, multiple backorders result in an auction, and generally these auctions see prices higher than what the domains would sell for at a regular marketplace like Sedo, so be cautious.