Repairs added to sales price

[Kyle A. Isaacs]

Good evening BP community! 

I'm running into somewhat of a dilemma while making an offer on a SFH and wanted to throw it out to the community.

Essentially, my agent and I valued a property (based on comps and psft) to arrive at a particular range.  The seller has the property listed significantly higher than the assessed value thus, I submitted an offer within the range of what I think is fair and within reason of the market.  Typically, when I underbid on a property, I'll always submit a letter that explains the reason and factors why my offer is low in an attempt to not offend the selling party.  However, the seller countered with a higher (yet lower than the original listed price) offer based on the notion that they need to complete repairs to the house in order for property to pass inspection.

Therefore, I'm curious to see if anyone has experienced this situation before and/or has a professional opinion.  In my opinion, the market value is the market value and if the seller needs to make repairs to pass inspection than the seller is merely updating the house to reach market value not adding value to the house.  This is probably the exact reason that the property has been listed for >90 days.

Look forward to your feedback.