How often does it happen, and how true is it that the first offer is almost always the best offer?

Last week  I activated on the MLS a fixer. The family and I have been talking since June about listing it. In August, I mentioned the fixer to one of my contractor clients who offered a decent price for it. The family didn't want to even look at the offer.

The next couple of months, I tried to explain that we are losing ground in terms of how much we can get for the house. So they agreed to let me list it last week. I proposed a lower price since prices of homes in general are trending downwards, but they wanted to list it at a higher price. It was all I could do to get approval to put up a yard sign and a lockbox.

Then 2 days after I activated it on the MLS, we received three offers, and one of them was the first buyer who then re-submitted his offer at $15K less than his original offer. The seller's reaction? Because they received three offers so quickly, they think they can get more and better offers if they wait awhile. They wanted to counter at $20K more. All three buyers said no.

A week passed. No other offers came in. Nada.Zilch.

UPDATE. The mother then said she will accept the highest offer. Although the offer has expired, the buyer was still interested, but wanted to reduce his price by $15K. Otherwise, he is no longer interested.

The seller's older son contends that since his mother is accepting the offer, the buyer is bound by it. Tried to explain that it doesn't work that way, that the offer expired, and even if his mother accepted, it needs mutual agreement to be binding. Also tried to explain contingencies, that if buyer does not clear contingencies, buyer can still back out of the agreement and get his deposit back.

He asked if I told his mother that the offers expired --- I couldn't make it any clearer to both his mother and his brother about the expiration. But they wanted to wait after the weekend to see what else comes up.

Another UPDATE: Three weeks....not a single offer!

>SIGH<