Reaction to offer: "Seller is offended." Is this a ploy?

I haven't shopped for a home in over a decade, and it's always been in Texas. The current experience in the PacNW is eye popping. First, it's hard to stomach seeing houses that sold for $350k 7 years ago double in price, climbing in $100k increments the last 3 years. But this inflation? seems common -- at least when homes are initially listed. However, I have also seen that after roughly 30 days on the market the prices on most places start dropping in increments of $10K to $25K. I realize that some sellers need to sell whereas others don't, but in the main there are consistent patterns.

So I made an offer on one place (a 1999 build, on the market over two months.) for $25K less than most recently discounted asking price of $700k. Inspection revealed that the home needs a new roof and complete exterior paint. "My" realtor said he's never heard of a seller agreeing to replace a roof, much less repaint. Ultimately, I decided to bail out and get my earnest money back instead of futz with negotiating. Main reason: another nearby house of equal interest, built in 2016, is at the same price and fulfills same needs -- except it is slightly smaller and does not have cooling, whereas the first house had central HVAC. (We think heat domes are here to stay, plus I've seen enough portable air conditioners in pix of living rooms in that market to think that the residents have felt the heat), so I submitted a contract for $4K off, and ask that they add cooling to the central heating system (after consulting with builder and HVAC installer if this is feasible, to which they respond, "it's simple", $8.5K max).

Seller's Realtor responds that his client was offended by my offer, to the point of not wanting to counter, but he supposedly worked on the seller to finally agree to the $4K discount. I was surprised that a seller would be "offended" by an offer that is basically asking for at most $15k off, in a market where $10k to $25K incremental drops are common. Nonetheless, "my" Realtor and the seller act like this was an unusually "big ask".

Is this merely a ploy from page 29 of the Real Estate sales manual? Regardless, this has reminded me that having to go through two Realtors for all communication, and using forms instead of dialog, is a recipe for the buyer or the seller to misunderstand the other party's motives and reasoning.

submitted by /u/twdal
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source https://www.reddit.com/r/RealEstate/comments/16tgwgy/reaction_to_offer_seller_is_offended_is_this_a/