First Inquiry on a Multifamily - Seller is experienced investor

[Ryan Reynebeau]

I am looking for my first deal in real estate, and found a post on craigslist in my area that I though had very good potential. It is the first home that I am inquiring about. There was no indication that the seller was any kind of investor or if he was just a homeowner. I reached out to the seller via email with some very basic questions about the property and told him that if things look right, I would be happy to make a cash offer, albeit that I would not be able to offer the full asking price of 95k. I did not disclose the amount I would be willing to pay. 

He replied about 5 minutes later with a message that had a hint of intimidation (keep in mind, I have never made a purchase in the real estate space, so maybe I'm overthinking!). Is it against the forum rules to post his response? Well, I posted it below. One of my questions was if he could provide the rental agreements from the current tenant (paying 595) and for a past tenant of the unit which could "easily rent for 995". I also never mentioned a comp or Zillow, so he's assuming things about me (Little does he know, his assumptions are correct...). 

I looked him up, and indeed he has a website and a real estate LLC. Just my luck to run into an experience RE investor for my first inquiry! However, something still seems a bit off with it.. maybe a hidden problem that he is trying to pawn off. Either way, I left a nice message that I would talk with my partner about his "rock bottom" price (still not disclosing what my offer would be) and how we could make the numbers work, and then get back to him in a couple days unless we couldn't meet his minimum, in which case I wouldn't waste his time.

Seller's Response:
"Yes to all your questions except the written leases. Previous owner did not believe in written leases and upper unit tenant is vacating by April 1st, I hope. Otherwise is rented for $595/mo +utilities for the upper. Lower unit is vacant and I have not rented it yet but would easily rent for $995/mo, maybe more depending on improvements that are done. I don't need to sell the house and am prepared to fix it up myself as I am also a licensed contractor. But that being said, I also have about 10 projects on the backburner and just wanted to see if someone else wanted to take this one over. Hence the reason I would sell it. My rock bottom price is $86,000 AS IS and won't entertain anything lower than that. I can rerent the house with minimal work and cashflow like a banshee on it. If you are looking at zillow for comps I would suggest you look at actual MLS comps instead for 1624 square foot 5 bedroom 2 bath homes to see the real after repair value on this property. If you rely 100% on zillow, take note on how I influence that value in the next 2 months and you will see how it can be manipulated. Previous owner owned it for 30 or 40 years so zillow doesn't know what to do with that information, or I should say lack thereof."

Thanks for the input.