In one five-hour period this week, I came across an entire spectrum of situations that highlight the realities in today’s market. None of them,separately, was remarkable (well, maybe one). But to have them all happen in one transaction was pretty amazing. Over the next few blog posts, I’ll break it down.

First, about the buyer – more so, how this buyer is typical of buyers in today’s market, first time buyers in particular. Sellers - take note.

This buyer stated very clearly the opinion of many buyers today. In looking at a particular house, he wanted to make an offer that was 25% below the asking price – not unusual given today’s declining market.

In a nutshell, what he said that stood out was this, “Any seller should be thrilled to have me as a buyer. My credit is excellent and I have a good job; I have sufficient funds for a 20% down payment and can pay my own closing costs. If the seller is not interested in my offer, that’s fine, because there are plenty of other houses on the market. I’m not willing to pay more. I really like this house and want it, but not enough to pay more for it.” It came across as arrogant, but not unreasonable.

To these buyers, the seller’s situation is irrelevant, except as it shows the amount of desperation the seller may feel to accept any offer that comes along. In short sales and foreclosures, there is also a perception that banks should just suck it up and take whatever they can get, regardless of the loss.  Again, possibly a valid point given the cost of carrying a house on the books with no payments coming in.

There seems to be no small amount of surprise in buyers with this mindset that more sellers aren’t willing to accept deep discounts on their sales prices. Their opinion is usually that sellers who are caught in this bad market did it to themselves and deserve whatever they get. I’ve even worked with buyers who have stated out loud that sellers needed to be punished for their bad decisions.

Please understand, I’m not saying this is a bad strategy for buyers to use these days – it’s the reality of the market we’re in, after all. And buyers have a very legitimate worry that values will drop even further, that by the time they’ve been in the house a year, they’ll be in the same situation as the seller they bought from.

(C) 2009 Susan Pruden.