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Compared on comps the house is priced well, maybe slightly over.
Is the house slightly 'over' priced, or is it simply on the higher priced end of comps (but still fairly priced). IMO, there's a difference.
If a house is over priced, I wouldn't feel badly. If the house is fairly priced, offering $10k lower, might have actually been an offer not worth considering.(even though there's no need for anyone to be rude about it.)
As a Realtor, we not only have to deal with our buyers or our sellers but we also have to deal with the other agent! I can tell you that some are much easier to deal with than others.
I recently had a buyer and midway through our negotiations, the sellers decided to fire their listing agent. No, not as easy as it sounds. I ended up doing all the work, dealing directly with the seller and got the house closed. It was double work for me but I did it for my buyer. The sellers and the listing agent are now both in court, to determine if the seller has to pay the listing agent. I'm staying out of that one!
Now, about your "low ball" offer...
It really does depend on the neighborhood and the comps. As I posted, I am trying to find a house in Apex for my buyer that is under $150,000. We have lost so many houses. The house we lost yesterday was listed at $149,000. Had we gone in there and offered $10,000 less, the sellers would not have taken it since the last 3 houses have sold in less than one week.
It really does depend on the neighborhood and maybe there is a valid reason why these sellers think $10,000 is a low ball offer.
I think it depends on what the sellers' attitude and motivation is. We made bids on two different homes. The first one we bid 10K under and the price was actually slightly over comps (but they had a great kitchen so we factored that in), then the sellers' didn't want to do ANY repairs because they thought that we had gotten such a great deal. Their agent also was really harsh. For a multitude of reasons, the deal fell through and we walked away.
The second home, similarly priced, we bid 10K under again but this time the seller's just accepted the bid and the sellers and their agent have been a pleasure to work with. This time though the house is priced significantly under comps.
Oh, in both cases also the home owners had also lowered their asking by at least 30K. So I think it just depends on how wedded a seller is to their sales price and their own expectations about where the market will head. Also sellers #1 needed to make a certain amt. of money to afford a house that they had a contingency on elsewhere so they really were stuck needing to make a certain amt. out of their house.
I dont want to say to much, you never know who is reading
Id say the house is fairly priced but on the higher end of comps.
No other contingencies. We did ask for an appliance not listed, but its not a big deal if they dont want to incl it.
From comments made by the seller to our agent, they are very eager to sell the house and get it over with.
Apparently there is a 2nd offer but its contingent on the buyer selling their house first and we were told the sellers refused it.
The issue for me is, I didnt expect them to accept our initial offer. But I thought 10K below the asking price was high enough to atleast get them to negotiate.
Id say the house is fairly priced but on the higher end of comps.
No other contingencies. We did ask for an appliance not listed, but its not a big deal if they dont want to incl it.
The issue for me is, I didnt expect them to accept our initial offer. But I thought 10K below the asking price was high enough to atleast get them to negotiate.
We were in a similar situation in May. Slightly higher price range and made an offer of 10K less. While by comparable comps the house was price about 5K over, we felt that it needed 5K worth of work for the yard to bring the yard close to the level of the other comps (house was fine but the owner had not taken care of the yard). So we felt 10K less was a good starting point. We got the same thing... a letter basically saying if we wanted to write an offer we should write it for 1K less than the price. I was shocked not to get a counter.... just not how it works in other places.
We ended up settling on a price of 5K less than asking price. We did NOT want to do a double move or live in an apt for a while (husband works from home). I was coming to the end of my trip and another set of plane tickets, hotel, car rental, blah blah blah would have eatten into that 5K difference. So we settled on the 5K less than asking.
In the end we love the neighborhood, we really like the house, and we really hate the yard. Grass was pretty much dead when we moved in during July. Given the lack of rain, I'm sure you can imagine what it looks like now. But the yard has potential... if it ever rains again.
If I had not been dealing w/ trying to buy a house while living 3K miles away I would have walked away from the deal. I don't know if I would have been better off or worse off. Rates did go up slightly after we locked in, so who knows if our decision was right. But honestly for 5K I'm not loosing any sleep over it. Now the lack of grass & the drought the conditions does keep me up at night.
But I'm still amazed that they did not counter, nor did they "reject" the offer. BTW, in our 2nd offer we did include that if they should respond either with an accepted offer, rejected offer, or counter offer. If they responded with a letter again we were going to walk.
Id say the house is fairly priced but on the higher end of comps.
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The issue for me is, I didnt expect them to accept our initial offer. But I thought 10K below the asking price was high enough to at least get them to negotiate.
If the house is fairly priced, then I 'do' feel that $10k is a bit insulting (even though you didn't mean it that way.) It might also be a red flag that you would be difficult to deal with the entire way (especially depending on what comes up during the inspection.)
But that's just me...
I don't particularly care to haggle, just to haggle. I would have 'maybe' gone $5k under, and asked the seller to cover closing costs.
On my house, I felt it was VERY fairly priced, plus I really wanted it - so I offered list, and sked the seller to cover closing. (they said, no prob.)
The inspector felt the house needed a new roof - and the seller agreed to do that, too - no argument. It was something that other buyings would have asked for...and they might not have offered list.
If you really want the house, make a fair offer. If you don't mind what happens...sit back and wait for them to blink.
We are not paying for closing costs, so we didnt ask for any of that.
Not one of the comps sold for asking price. They sold for $2 - $15 K below. Multiply the average $/sq foot for this house, compared with comps its right in the middle of our offer and their asking price. Taking in to the account the condition of the grass etc., I still believe our initial offer was a fair starting point.
We paid asking price for our house in MA. It was 5 yrs ago and unlike now the market was HOT.
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But the yard has potential... if it ever rains again. 
