If the sellers have had the house on the market for over a year and are only considering a 5% price drop, they are hardly "motivated," no matter what they say.

It's pretty clear that while they might want to sell, they don't have to. After 30 years in the house, they're probably thinking, "What's the rush? The market is soft now. We'll wait it out."

As for the nice letter about the bidder "cherishing" the house...frankly, unless I was (a) selling my grandmother's house and (b) rolling in money, it wouldn't change my mind one bit. It's not like the house is being saved from the wrecking ball by the bidders, now is it?

You're talking about making an offer $100K below asking price. Justified or not, no amount of sweet talking is likely to pull that one off.

I'd say make an offer! See article below.

Here is a link that might be useful: Overpriced Homes

If the home is overpriced, are you willing and able to overpay to have the home you love? Some people would be willing, if the property is special. Many would not (especially 20%). In the end, offer the amount the home is worth to you and wait for the seller's response.

Providing comps may or may not help move the sellers on price, but at least they'd know where you are coming from.

I doubt a sentimental letter would sway my price much. If your offer is at the max your budget allows, a letter could explain that you love the house, but simply can't pay more. Such a letter would cause me to end the negotiations quickly, one way or the other. But if you told me you have plenty of money, absolutely love the house and want to raise a family in it, I'd expect a stong offer, not a low one.

Berniek, I don't disagree--but would you advise the buyer to include the sentimental letter?

And, in your experience, do sellers ever accept an offer 20% below initial asking without first lowering the price to test the waters a bit?

As a seller a sentimental letter would not sway me, money would. A weak offer monetarily could not be made sweeter by a sentimental letter, a weak offer is still a weak offer no matter how much you try to sugar coat it and say please and pretty please, I can't take pretty pleases to the bank.

Thanks for the feedback. I'm going to consider suggesting having an appraisal before an offer is written.

I know my parents were able to 'get to' the wife on a deal they made about 30 years ago and it helped the deal go through immensely.

I know the buyers want the house but this is skirting on throwing money away - there is no way that anyone could justify this house being anything less than 60k overpriced, and likely closer to 80-100k overpriced.

Their agent seems pretty green and one can only hope that he's sick of having this listing and will work for my side of the deal as well.

This is just such an unusual situation with such a significant mark up - I appreciate your advice. The buyers can more than afford this property even at full price, but seeing the comps they're very cogniscient that if they purchase near list they're being financially irresponsible and this doesn't line up with their goals of this property being profitable.

I'd say offer @ 100k. Remove the emotional factor as it bleeds they need it more than simply want a deal. I'd propose the facts - the house is overpriced, here is proof of this, and maybe anticipate their current mortgage payments + taxes so figure out how much they've lost paying mortgage vs. selling it over the past 400 days.

I think many homeowners emotionally believe their house is worth x figure but do not incorporate the y factor of (property tax + mortgage payments) while they sit on a soft figure.
IMO, there is no soft housing market if sellers has realistic profit expectations as interest rate are still reasonable.

berniek - thanks for the article it was very helpful.

A couple of months ago we found an overpriced house we wanted to offer on. We liked it enough to buy it as a house to live in for several years but didn't love it for permanent. We offered about 82% of listing price after looking closely at comps. It was clearly overpriced. I explained to my agent why we felt it was overpriced and asked her to explain to selling agent. After making the offer, the seller elected not to counter and, in fact, took the house off the market. My sense was that he didn't have to sell and only wanted to sell for his price. I suspect his agent told him his price was overpriced so he took it off the market. I posted here about it and several seemed aghast we made a lowball offer. But what else could we do? Not offer at all. Maybe he would have come down though. Offer his price? Financially irresponsible.

Anyway, we went on and found a house shortly after that we did absolutely love listed for over $200k more than his house. It was priced a little high but close to reasonable and we settled on a price and closed at the end of November. A couple of weeks after we closed the agent for the overpriced house contacted my agent and said this his seller was now willing to make a counter if we were still interested... Of course, we weren't. I'm not sorry we made the offer we did. We didn't end up with the house but we gave it our best shot within the realm of what we felt was fiscal sanity.

kats - thanks for your perspective. I think it's a very real possibility that an offer won't get bounced back, hence the idea of a personal note. I think the buyers are really likeable and their disposition is one that is more pallatable than a buidler coming in to gut the place.

Regarding the wrecking ball comment you'd be surprised how many sellers would rather sell their place to someone who is going to retain some of the history ranther than someone who would knock it down or otherwise demolish their memories.

Personally I could care less what someone does with my house - but not everyone feels that way.

I know this isn't the same, but it's kinda along the lines...

When I was a young person in the market for a newer used car, I found a great one out of my price range. During the test drive, me and the owner found we both went to the same church and I told her why I was in the market for that particular car (safer to drive the kids around that I did volunteer work for). I offered the seller my max, explaining the reasons, knowing it was well below what the car was worth. She initially turned me down because it was less than what they still owed on the car. But after receiving a full price offer from another person, called me back and offered it to me at my price because they felt good about it, had prayed about it, etc, etc.

We also included a personal letter with our offer when we bought this house 6 years ago. It just felt like the right thing to do. And there are a few houses I have my eye on here that I'd like to offer on when my house goes on the market. They're just out of my price range, but have been on the market a very long time. I figured I'd offer my max, along with a letter of explanation -- not intending to offend by the low offer, but figured in this market to some sellers, any offer might be better than no offer at all. You just never know.

I'm sort of in the position of the sellers in this story. But in my case a developer really wants to buy and I don't want to sell. He has tried the 'personal' thing. To make a long story short, he's just kind of creepy. Next time he contacts me I will tell him all contact must be thru my attorney. Maybe you are a very personable guy and can pull off the sympathetic approach--you have nothing to lose. If they refuse your offer tell the potential buyers to move on. One way or the other it will move the situation forward.

I would say that it's worth a shot. It might work, it might not, but you'll never know unless you try it.
Selling a house, for many people, is just not about the money.
My favorite story was that some friends of mine were getting shut out of every condo they put an offer on during the hot D.C. market a few years back. All offers were zero contigency and everything selling for well above listing price. Finally, one condo came down between them and another couple, represented by an agent, and they were doing that thing where they outbid each other by $10K over and over. The seller finally had enough and said that he was going to make enough money on the house and he didn't want to deal with it any more, so they were going to flip a coin over who would get it. The agent was apparently having a cow over this scenario and kept trying to offer more $$$, but the seller wouldn't have it. My friends won the coin toss.

The last house we sold, we made a fair, comp'ed offer to our rental tenants, and they accepted it. I've had folks call me about buying our townhouse in MD, and I tell them that if I'm ever interested in selling it, I will offer it to our long-term tenant first, because I think that is the fair thing to do. They don't ever call back.
A personal letter would work on me, because it's not just about the money.
R/
Lisa A.
Lisa A.

All - well the seller's met the buyers and I think at this point a personal letter isn't necessary. They were honest and told them about themselves and they seemed thrilled that it wasn't just some flippers or something. We shall see - I'll keep you updated.

Just wanted to follow up. Just had the inspection and the sellers agreed that the price was purely person and they turned down a higher offer over personality. Every seller is different, but just wanted to let everyone know the results in this situation.
-pebs

how much they've lost paying mortgage vs. selling it over the past 400 days.

If they aren't paying mortgage ELSEWHERE, then they may not consider themselves as having lost money.

I know that my place was on the market a long time before we finally took it off, and we paid LESS money for our old place than our new. If we hadn't had a bid in on a new place already that involved us paying their maintenance to get them to wait, we wouldn't be out any money at all.