Sellers Not Sending Counter Offers, What's With That?

[Gates Mueller]

Over the past few months here in San Antonio I have encountered numerous situations where I send in an offer on a property and receive a flat out "no" or "we are declining your offer." I always encourage clients (selling) to counter every offer, even if it is a "lowball." You never know if there is a deal to be made by outright refusing to engage in a negotiation. The offers that have been declined are within 10-12% of the list price, which I would not consider to be offensively low. Has anyone else encountered this?

Trying to figure out if this is a result of bad Realtors overpricing homes and giving bad advice, or if the "amazing growth" in San Antonio has just gone to everyone's head. Today an agent told me "it wasn't worth my time putting together a counter offer to your client." He responded to my email, which is all the time it takes to counter...another agent a few weeks back sent, "My clients laughed at your offer, that's the only response you will get." That house dropped $30,000 in the course of 3 weeks on the market before they fired their agent and took the house off market, and their final price was only $8,000 above our offer.