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Apparently...there are many homeowners looking to sell their properties...but the question is how many are actually serious and how many are not very motivated. I seem to always ask them this important question...."Do you want to own it or do you want to sell it?"
I am working with a buyer who happens to be a good friend of mine from New York. He has been staying at my home in Weston.
The first 2 days of our journey was spent showing him every condominium available along Ocean Blvd... close the beaches of Hollywood. The last day of his short visit was spent looking a bit further south over in the Hallandale Beach area.
He needs to identify 5 properties for this purchase because it will be a 1031 exchange. Basically he has 45 days to identify the properties and another 180 days to close on one. My friend is well aware of our current market and he has been tracking the news regarding our other problems with many lending institutions. This deal is basically a slam dunk because this is a cash deal and the money is just sitting in the account waiting to be used for this purchase. We have looked at maybe 30 properties and he likes 4-5 prospects. He is limited to spending around $200,000. He had requested me to pull up all the condos that are priced up to $300,000. There are literally thousands of these available in the area and he knows that most have been sitting for up to a year or more. He also knows that many of them are estate sales and the trustees just want out so they can take the proceeds and move on. Most of these were purchased in the 70's at prices such as $40,000.
We found one about a month ago when he had me looking for him and we actually placed an offer on one listed at $265,000. History showed him that the price was originally $355,000 so it had been reduced a lot since then. It was also on the market a very long time. The offer he placed was at $200,000. It was accepted but he decided to back out of it and come down and see what others compared but were on the beach side. This one was on the inter-coastal side but he still was able to see the ocean. He tells me as we are driving "Neal...there are 2000 condos just in this area that are sitting empty and they are paying taxes and maintenance. I am sure some of those people are saying GET ME OUT OF HERE!"
This thought he had was so powerful that we both though we actually saw someone out on their balcony yelling it down to us. Here is the kicker..one of them was asking $300,000 and he had me call the listing Realtor® before we put it in writing. I told the agent he wanted to offer $200,000 all cash and close in 14 days and AS-IS.
He figured "what do I have to lose". The agent told me to just forget it and that his clients wanted $300,000 and that was it. So ....we moved on and placed an offer on another. He is leaving today and told me to place offers on any of the ones he picked and told me he would return in a week to look again.
The bottom line is that I am sure there are many people in the position where they might think about just getting out of their current position based on the fact that our market is very slow here and there are not many people that want to wait this out so I think he might get lucky this time around. I hope he does.
I told him not to worry because I will find a property for him. After all....... he is working with The Real Deal
Neal Bloom-Realtor ® Assoc.-CRS-Weston FL 
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I don't envy the amount of paperwork you will be going through in seeking to purchase a property for approx. 2/3 of the asking price. For instance, my properties would be priced correctly and remarkably they all sell. My broker suggested that my statistics would not be 100%, if I would just list more. I learned to walk away for overpriced property. Lots of it out there. But I will only list that which will sell. Prepare it and Price it correctly , it does. Thankfully for me, most agents don't do that. So my properties stand out! If I received an offer for 2/3 of the list, I would deem it frivolous. But way to go, Neil, I am glad it isn't me trying to do that. But I do suspect you will be successful not because of what you are doing but rather because of who you are, a true professional.