Current house-buying strategy in an environment of falling prices?

Have you already visited the property?

The sword is double-edged. As you have already noticed yourself, your offer is far from his original asking price, and still very far from his current one. The chance that he will accept it is currently low. On the other hand, the wait strategy also has its pitfalls. With every further price drop, you bring more potential competitors on board for whom the object then appears in the filter / moves within their feasibility range.

In general, I don't know where your assumption comes from that your assumed market value would be correct, so far below the listing price? Real estate prices are unfortunately not that trivial. Getting the right bargain property will be difficult; usually, someone else who values the object more tends to enter the race before that.

Show some interest first and visit the house. Then you are at least not just a completely anonymous interested party.

If the property is just one among many for you, then make an offer. Either you offend the other party, and then this XYZ terraced house is simply off the table. Or a negotiation arises, and then you see how it goes.

There are always sellers under more or less great time pressure. But you won't find that out at home in front of the screen in each individual case.

Feel free to keep us updated - we are definitely in a similar situation. I also see a similar trend in our metropolitan region. Until a few months ago, the houses were taken offline immediately, now some have been listed for 6 months, some stay at the same price, and some are partially reduced by 15%. We are also unsure whether we should strike now or wait longer. However, I don't think prices will fall much further. The big advantage is that brokers call us instead of the other way around - the competition in certain price ranges seems to have almost dissolved.

Feel free to keep us updated - we are definitely in a similar situation.

The house sold last week for 550k, so at least for about 2/3 of the originally listed price.
Even before this price was reached, I made the owner an offer in this range, but he insisted on only responding to my offer after he had lowered the listing price accordingly – with the reasoning that if he sold it to me for 500k + x (while it was still listed at over 600k), then interested parties who set their search criteria below 600k wouldn’t even be able to “bid” because they wouldn’t know about the offer.
And what can I say: He was right. After he lowered the listing price, someone got ahead of me who hadn’t even been in the running before.
It would be interesting to know whether this seller behavior is common? Currently, I observe more often that houses stay on the market for months (without a price reduction – or with only one), rather than the price being reduced multiple times at shorter intervals. However, neither seller nor broker can expect a buyer willing to pay 550k to respond to a listing at 850k. That buyer would probably wait forever.
Apparently, new behavioral rules still have to establish themselves in the transformed market.

I do believe that is common. I only described it a few posts above. I wouldn't overestimate the time periods it takes for the price to be reduced. Maybe the real estate agent previously had interested parties at the original price or slightly below who were still undecided. As long as someone is willing to pay the price - if applicable - they probably keep it listed at that level at first. When all interested parties drop out, eventually the price has to be adjusted.