Ah, the old whoever mentions a price first loses game.

If you have done your analysis of the place, you know how much you are willing to pay.

Just say "instead of playing the game of who says a number first loses, let me say this-- I will give you $$$ and you have 60 seconds to accept or not. There are other places I'm looking at and I'll be buying one of them in the next day or two. If you want to sell for $$$ say so now or I will be done with yours and talk to the next one. I'm not going to play games."

And mean it.

If they don't accept your offer right there, leave. Just say at that point "if you change your mind, call me".

If the seller won't name a price, then they're not motivated to sell, so I need to go fishing elsewhere.

Even when the seller does name a price, there's no guarantee that the deal will go through, or go through in a timely manner. It took me over a year to get all the heirs on board for selling their mom's house after her new husband passed away-- he had a life estate it. Three of the heirs were perfectly fine with it, but the fourth heir with his little 10% interest in it wasn't motivated, because all he had was a 10% interest. We agreed on the sale prior to Thanksgiving 2020. We finally closed on the sale in early January, 2022. And I've promised to not take possession until after Valentine's Day, to give them even more time to clear out more of their treasures... ;)

I have a different building that we were interested in. Two adjacent storefronts on Main Street. Both needed significant roof work-- about $30k worth of roof on one, and $16k worth of work on the other. The guy wanted to sell both together, but ultimately agreed to sell just the one side. He also put in a clause about "if the deal isn't concluded within 3 months, it's null and void." And the moment I saw that, I knew he had no intention of going through with it, because that's not a clause you put in with a cash buyer who's clearly motivated. The clock started ticking before Thanksgiving; the clock will run out at the end of January. We promised that he could have until January 1st and beyond to move his stuff out of it; we just wanted to get the deal closed so we could get roof work started. I visited him a little before Christmas to touch base with him. Oh, yes, he's totally going to go through with it, but just having trouble getting his stuff moved... I gave him a phone number for people who make stuff move at a good price, but I doubt he's called it. We'll run the clock out, and then move on with life, because he can keep his leaky roof if he prefers it that way. ;)

We never purchased an investment house when people were in them. Were always foreclosed and empty. We learned right out of the gate that you spend days and days putting a deal together and the rug gets pulled out from under you-- and usually just before closing.

I'll ask, tell me what your thinking on price?

NE I had no real competitions. The/my agent and I had a deal.

Buyer: "You'd probably be insulted if I offered you $5,000 for this property as is...."

Seller: "Certainly! There's no way I'd accept so little."

Buyer: "My thoughts exactly, and I don't want to insult you. What would it take to keep me from insulting you?"

Who ever tosses out a number first typically loses. So I love how Sid addressed this.

If they still balk - then follow it up with how about $5,000 and a cup of coffee.

There are two types of sellers, those that want to sell and those that don't.