I had a friend that filed for divorce. The husband moved out but was not happy and then turned angry. She wanted to sell the large/expensive house as soon as possible. He turned down every single offer for 2 years.

You won't know what they will do until you give them an offer.

Make your offer just as you would with any home. If it is significantly lower than asking, expect a counteroffer but don't assume that just because they are divorcing they don't want to get the sale over and done with. Sounds like their listing agent has given them a reality check.

We purchased a home for a divorcing couple and negotiations were no more difficult than any real estate transaction. I think their realtor may have had a harder time running between the two of them because we had several back and forth negotiations. You have nothing to lose by making an offer. Any seller or buyer can be a nightmare with or without a divorce in the picture - you just never know until you're in it.

Thanks all. The good news is we don't have to buy a house so we can make an offer and hang around the hoop for as long as needed. We think fair market value is closer to 80% of asking. Only one way to find out if this will fly is to write the offer I suppose. Thanks for the encouragement.

Look this is BUSINESS This is not making new friends.

And unless you are paying cash, that place has to appraise.

A lender will NOT lend anymore than the appraisal (or what every limit it is willing to do as a percentage of the appraised value.)

If the appraisal comes in $100,000 and your lender is doing 80%, the lender is only going to lend $80000 - not 80% of the seller's fantasy price.

Make the offer and have your realtor give their realtor the comps and even give their realtor a note as to why, based upon the comps, the offer is what it is.

I wouldn't sit on making an offer- not if things are moving at all in your market.

While you sit around doing "oh gee we don't want to insult them" , someone like me is going to throw down the offer, drop the comps on them and say "show me in real data and comps why I should pay more."

And odds are they will take my offer.

If the sellers are divorcing, the last thing they want to do is keep having to deal with each other over the house!

BTW RE: selling agent said they are considering a price reduction.

Had my agent - as the seller -once pull that stunt and tell a buyer we might drop the price on some land we were selling (and said it without our knowledge or permission.)

My (former) agent ending up by the land from us at the price that is was listed at --- it was buy it or lose his license for breaching his fiduciary duty to us.

There are million war stories. We purchased a house from a divorcing couple. The husband had developed a drug issue and had spent every penny plus some. The wife didn't have a dime to her name and two out of control teenage sons. The inspection found termites. The agents contractor husband ended up having to do the tear out and basic fix. He got paid at the closing. We just had to be a little more patient about getting an answer when issues would come up.

The most interesting part was the closing. There a was a restraining order in place. They had to get a waiver for that. The couple were originally Swedish. At the closing table, they kept saying nasty things to each other. None of us could understand what they were saying. We could understand the tone of voice. It wasn't nice. We kept waiting for them to go at one another across the table.

While the house was emptied out, the attic was filled to the rafters with their stuff. They were supposed to have it out by closing. We inspected on the day of closing. They had dumped all of it on the curb out in front of the house. This was in an inner city setting. There would have been a riot on the street if that stuff was left out too long. Because they had been such dirt bags, we weren't going to close without that stuff being moved off the curb. We made them escrow some money to pay for removal. If they didn't remove the stuff in 24 hours, we could have it removed and sent to the dump. That night we drove past the house. The realtor's husband was loading all of their stuff into a truck. They were so angry at one another, they couldn't do anything together.

That was the most exciting closing I have had to date. It required a lot extra patience to get it done.

We bought from a divorcing couple. Ann (posted earlier) got it right -- in their case, it was the last joint property to be taken care of. They had "separate" RE agents since he wouldn't talk with hers and she wouldn't talk with his. Fortunately the two agents worked in the same office, so they acted as go-betweens. Neither one showed up for closing (sent their agents and proxies instead). And yet, on move-in day, they had left us a bottle of champagne in the fridge and a note wishing me and my wife much happiness in the house. (I don't think they know that, after we moved out of that house, we divorced.)

You may need to give an offer a bit more time to get around the raw nerves and walls the sellers have erected. But make the offer you want and see what happens. Don't ask, don't get....

I would make a rational offer and stick to FMV for a purchase. That they have it listed that much higher would seem to indicate that at least one of them has some unrealistic expectations about what they should be netting in the process and are willing to bankroll the fight, so I wouldn't be getting emotionally investeed in the idea of getting the house until you get a reply that shows some potential.