Declined my offer for over asking price?

[Joseph Bass]

So a house in my area declined my original offer. They also stated they wouldn’t take any less then asking price. I returned a offer of 100 dollars over asking and they declined it again. I got a response of a round about way of saying I wasn’t the type of person they wanted to buy the house. I’m guessing they work with people who normally can’t buy a home and want to pursue a buyer that meets that criteria. Does this happen often/is it ethical?

[David Stone]

What was your original offer?  If you low ball them to begin with > get denied > then offer $100 over asking... well, I think they already got a look into what your intentions are (lock the property in, inspect and drop the price). Not sure if that is what happened or not, but come in with a strong offer to begin with and then adjust as necessary according to condition that was not known or disclosed.

For example, I was helping a client sell a home listed for $230k. Multiple offers came in.  We asked for highest and best. One was full price and raised to $235k. Another had an initial offer of $220k and raised to $237k.  We accepted the offer at 235k because the one who came in low initially and raised super high already showed their cards, and we assume their intention is to drop the price on us later... this only ties up the property longer and makes people wonder why it went pending then active again (they question the quality of the home at that point and opinion of value goes down)