Raybyrnes. I think in a couple cases the seller was probably driving the firm response, but in others I think it was their agent. In either case, I think the agent is supposed to be the more sophisticated real estate wise and less emotional so should counsel their client. It is obvoius that later they did indeed drop their prices dramatically.

In a few cases we indicated verbally while we were still looking at the house that we would be writing an offer and were discouraged as indicted in my post by the selling agent. In others my agent contacted the selling agent by phone after we viewed the house to ask if there were other offers and that we wanted to write one and was discouraged as indicated. She would either say we wanted to write an offer or we were considering writing one. Either way, not a good idea to discourage any interest in this market me thinks.