How many offers should a buyer write before giving up?

Is he looking only at foreclosures?  If he's offering higher than asking price and the property needs work, which costs money, try showing him that he could potentially achieve the same goal by buying a "regular" resale at market value.

It's hard to believe that investors are offering more than list price in this market.  Are the properties still available or are they already under contract but not yet listed that way?  Some agents are slow in making the change in status just in case their current deal falls apart.  Also, might there not be a concern with the property appraising when the offer is so much higer than the list?

Nouk - Oh, I am feeling your pain and so are my clients.  While I am not a Realtor writing offers for my clients, I do hear about every single one they do make.  I don't know what your market is like, but here in Los Angeles and Ventura counties, our market is driven by short sales and foreclosures with very few traditional equity sales and those are typically in the high end of the market, which is not my clients price range.

I have mostly first time buyer clients that have been looking for most of the year and have made dozens of offers, most of them higher than list price and almost all of them have lost out to all cash investors and many of those offers were actually lower than my clients financed offers.

We're also seeing the same freaking games by REO listing agents who intentionally list way below market value simply in order to get bidding wars going.  The latest game is to set a specific date as to when all offers will be reviewed and on that date, they simply accept the highest cash offer they have.  It's really ugly and sleazy and it's not getting any better.

How many offers should a buyer make?  As many as they can until they either get one accepted or they just become too disgusted and discouraged by the whole racket (I've lost a few of those lately).