Buyers visiting my open house last weekend expressed a lot of interest in the home, but a lot of caution about the direction of the market. I told them that a lot of sellers are very motivated, and encouraged them to write offers at numbers they could live with, even if the price wasn’t close to the list price.

In this market, you never know what a seller will be willing to take, and it’s good to get them in conversation. And I still stand by the old truism, “The first offer is usually the best offer.” So if sellers are surprised by a low offer, they need to think long and hard about if they can or want to sell their property at that price, because it’s likely to be the best offer they will get.