Here’s a thought. The time to buy is after the sellers have all been thoroughly brutalized by the collapse. It’s after they have come to accept that there is absolutely no hope, no light at the end of the tunnel, no cavalry coming to the rescue, not even a 2×4 to hang onto in a storm-tossed sea. (that enough analogies for you?)
We’re not there yet. We still have knuckleheads who think that things will level out in 2008 for a couple years until wages catch up to prices. We still have would-be sellers taking personal offense at offers to purchase because they’re too low. In effect, these people still blame the buyers for their problems and haven’t yet accepted the idea that their problem was their purchase, not their sale.
You just need to allow the market conditions to do the tenderizing for you. That way it’s not your fault they’re losing out. Once the sellers are softened up enough to cooperate they’ll sell.
BTW, as a group the sellers are but a small subset of property owners. There are lots of property owners who can and will hold. They aren’t part of your transaction and as such you really don’t care what they think. It’s just the marginal owners who are compelled to sell that you want to see become demoralized. It sounds kinda mean until we acknowledge that prices are a function of market activity in the macro, not buyer malicousness in the micro.
