Missed another deal. Advice?

[John H.]

In my area, deals are few and far, so its best to not miss any.

This is the last one that closed just last week.

Singly family house was on the market for $120k with nursing home getting proceeds from their patients home. I know the realtor personally and I said nice house, needs work, would they take 60? She told me no, it can't ever go that low due to the nursing home lien. I took her word for it, so i let it go.

8 months later, it closed for $40k with asking price of $120k still. I asked her what happened, I thought it couldn't go lower. She said, oh, it has a mold problem and the roof leaks. She sort of just shrugged it off when I asked why didn't she tell me about it ( I see here twice a month for other reasons). I would have paid 60+ easily.

I guess my question is, how do you keep yourself on the top of realtors "call" list when things get cheaper? She already knows I'm a cash buyer and never do any type of inspections or appraisals.

My only thought was to nonchalantly mention, "of btw, if you ever see a house drop into my price range, i'll throw and extra grand, or 5k under the table if we get it to close.

I dont' want to insult any realtors either......advice?