What Should She Counter-offer?

----------------------------UPDATE-------------------------

So her last counter was $480K. Buyer countered at $445K.

She took it.

Story is this; it's been for sale for over 7 months, lots of lookers (100+), no offers. This is her first offer. She bought in the 1990's, so she's fine, making some money on it. Not in Manhattan.

There you have it.

Noah & Keith, I think you're both right. Many agents do anything to get the listing & many sellers are delusional, letting the listing go stale will lingering at too high a price.

That's good news, needsadvice. Best of luck to your friend.

Needs - while this was an interesting thread maybe the oh so minor details of duration and # of lookey loos would have made this brief(er) and to the point.

needsadvie: What a good friend you are to her. Best of luck to you both.

Come on people. Details add up to you?

"I thought that was pretty odd, comps are at $480-$515K" - so much for comps
"it's been for sale for over 7 months, lots of lookers (100+), no offers. This is her first offer." - and no price adjustment?
"Friend of mine got a $410K offer on her $499K unit" splitting the difference on day 1 would have been
$454,500 - seemed like we are just about there despite endless discussion and formulae - ah, the science that is real estate

Hope it sticks. It ain't done 'til it's done. I was concerned about your posting the info so quickly on the accepted offer but since they're not in Manhattan, perhaps the buyers won't see this.

----------------------------UPDATE-------------------------
Property closed

She is very happy she took that price as the double-dip is rolling into her area. Comps are now reducing list prices to $450K-$475K, which we all know will negotiate down to the $420's. Showings are dropping, it's going to be a slow summer for sellers.

I think she should send me a bottle of wine.

What analysis did I do? I checked sales figures for her area for the last three months and found the number of contracts and closings was dropping fast. I also found that the average difference between ask and close used to be 7%, and in the last three months had grown to 10%. I looked at the number of showings, and thought of the old adage "In real estate your first offer is your best offer" and used that concept to keep her in the negotiation.

Interestingly, the demographics of the buyers are the same as the demographics of the sellers; self-employed, younger, professional couple with a lot of cash to put down. Put cash in RE because they saw that their cash would not get decent interest for at least 5 years.

Anyone else with demographics of buyers versus sellers? This might be a new key to marketing/understanding RE.

Hope the buyers don't read SE - maybe you should send them a bottle of wine.

Can we have the address now it has closed?