Great replies and thank you Jim for clarifying that not every buyer’s agent is a specialist in a buyer’s market. Some people don’t mind bypassing the realtor and making offers themselves.I am not one of them, I find a realtor’s services valuable. Do I really have to prove I’m worthy as a potential client? Shouldn’t it be the other way around? But just like Mark Holmes pointed out I can’t imagine a seller and their agent having a conversation a couple years ago along the lines of “What you’re asking for this small house is pretty riduculous and would insult the buyer’s intelligence, you should lower your ask to something more realistic.” They both knew it was a seller’s market and didn’t have a nanosecond of a crisis of conscience maximizing their money. Should the reverse not hold true in a buyer’s market? I’ve read stories posted to this blog about buyer’s lowball offeres getting laughed at, only to have the property sell months later at BELOW that lowball offer after sitting on market with no takers. The value of a good buyer’s market agent to me would be to point out examples of that to the seller and their agent, the quality of the buyer’s credit/down payment…basically making a rational case for considering the lowball. But for some sellers it’s groundhog day where they wake up every morning in 2005.