Offended Sellers Agent With Low Offer...How to Proceed?

[Tariq B.]

Hello All,

I have been scouting this 8 unit for over 2 years now. I finally decided to make a move.

When they first listed the property it was listed at $329000. This was back in 2015. Since then they have dropped it to $269,000. This place is in a town that is practically dying. A lot of stores have shut down and people are moving out. It's a pretty risky venture but it is my home town and I have hope for the place. Needless to say I wanted to jump on this.

After getting my agent to gather some information from the place we gathered that the NOI is roughly $15K. I was kind of disappointed in that number but feel I can raise rents and bring down expenses. Anyways moving forwarded I wanted to get eyes on some of the units to get a feel for the inside condition. The seller agent responded "no offer, no views". That kind of irritated me (I know sometimes/someplace that's custom). So my train of thought was well I am not going to put my best foot forwarded in case the insides are a total mess. If he wants an offer I'll give him one. So I offered 200k and 2% closing help. Roughly 75k off listing.

Keep in mind this place has been sitting for 2 years, so I thought why not. But the response I got was rather troublesome. The agent took it way to personal as if this was his own personal property he built from the floor up. To make it short the seller agent said we wasted our time. yada, yada, yada. Still he would not let us see the property because we are "so far off". It is my understanding the agent did not even present the offer to the seller.  

My game plan on this is to wait a week or two. My agent kind of got pissed at his response so we decided it best just to ignore him for now and try back again.

How would you handle this if it happened to you, curious?

[Anthony Podloski]

Same thing. Try again later, but don't get your hopes up. It sounds like they are pretty unrealistic in what they want, which is why it's sitting. There are dozens, if not hundreds, of 8-door properties across the country that make better returns than that. Being your hometown you're probably emotional about it, but if you want to make $$, move on.