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Home selling prices across the nation have been dropping since about 2006. In St. Joseph, home prices have dropped about 12 percent over three years.

Low-ball. In a soft real estate market that continues to favor the buyer, a low-ball offer on the table can give you a steal on a home.

But not in St. Joseph, real estate agents say.

Despite a 12 percent drop in existing home values in three years, some Realtors have found that buyers are increasingly low-balling to buy local homes. Those offers are up to 50 percent below the asking price.

Many agents blame media coverage of the nation’s housing market woes. They say the media has created an impression that the real estate bubble has burst as bad locally as it has in the worst-hit markets.

“You always see southern Michigan around Detroit, you see all of Florida, you see California, you see Las Vegas and then you see Phoenix,” said Mike Jackson, a broker with Coldwell Banker General Properties. “Those are the areas that pop up, and someone seeing that says, ‘Man, I’ve got to get out there and buy something.’”

Buyers who low-ball in those depressed real estate markets can bargain fire-sale discounts of up to 50 percent off the asking price. But, Mr. Jackson said, that cannot happen in St. Joseph since the house prices were not inflated.

He said local home prices have dropped about 4 percent per year since they topped out in 2006. That is 12 percent in three years.

“You’re not going to get a guy to sell his home to you for 50 percent off when he knows the market is only 12 percent off,” said Mr. Jackson, president of the St. Joseph Regional Association of Realtors. “All these (low-ball offers) do is anger the seller.”

A home can carry a lot of emotional attachment and, therefore, sellers don’t counter offers to such “disrespectful” buyers and offers.

Real estate salespeople are caught in the middle. Some may be unwilling to prolong negotiations that might not earn them a commission.

In other cases, buyers may low-ball simply as a negotiating tactic to avoid paying full price.

Robin Rickerson, a real estate agent with Reece & Nichols Ide Capital Realty, said buyers may start lower to end up with a fair price.

She said many times she’s still able to work a compromise, which leaves the buyer with a sense that they at least tried to get the home at the lowest possible price.

Local agents say any offer within 90 percent of the asking price is usually OK. Anything less may be asking too much from the seller.

“People trying to get a steal. That’s the history of real estate,” said Ron Hazzard, an agent with Realty Executives of Northwest Missouri. “But I tell my (sellers) not to be insulted by anything, and counter everything.”

Ahmad Safi can be reached at ahmadsafi@npgco.com.