How much below asking should I offer on a house that has been sitting on the market for months in Monroe County?

You have lost three houses. Each one went pending in under a week, each one sold over asking, and you are tired. Then you see it: a listing that has been sitting since June. Same photos. One price cut in July. Nobody is fighting you for it.

Your first thought is that something must be wrong with it. Sometimes that is true. Often it is not. This post walks through how to read a Monroe County listing that missed the fast window, how to tell a fixable problem from a real one, and how to structure an offer when you are the only buyer in the room.

Why does a house sit in a market this tight?

Because pricing and presentation errors are punished slowly, not immediately. The Rochester metro was reported at 0.96 months of inventory and a median of 28 days on market as of November 5, 2025, per HousingWire, the lowest inventory of any major New York metro. In a market that thin, a home that has been listed since June is not sitting because buyers are scarce. It is sitting for a specific reason, and that reason is usually one of six things.

• It was priced off the wrong comp. The seller looked at a renovated house down the street and ignored the difference in kitchens, baths and mechanicals.
• It launched into the wrong week. A June listing that debuted the same weekend as four better-prepared competitors gets skipped and never recovers momentum.
• The photos are bad. Dark, wide-angle, shot with furniture in the way. Buyers filter online before they ever schedule.
• Deferred maintenance is visible. Roof at end of life, a wet basement corner, knob and tube, a furnace with a date sticker from the Clinton administration.
• The layout is genuinely awkward. A bedroom you walk through to reach another bedroom. One full bath upstairs and nothing on the main floor.
• A deal fell apart. It went pending, inspection killed it, and it came back to market carrying the smell of a failed contract.

The first three are your opportunity. The last three are your negotiation, or your exit.

How do you read the listing history before you tour?

Read it as a timeline of the seller's decisions, not as a description of the house. Ask your agent to pull the full MLS history and look at four things.

The price path

Write down the original list price, every reduction, the date of each, and the current price. A seller who came out at $389,900 in June, cut to $374,900 in July, then cut to $359,900 in August is telling you they are actively responding to feedback. A seller who has held one price since June is telling you the opposite. The size of the cuts matters more than the number of them. Two cuts of $5,000 each is a seller nibbling. One cut of $25,000 is a seller who has had a real conversation.

Cumulative days on market versus days on this listing

If the home was withdrawn and relisted, the days on market counter resets. The house did not. Cumulative days is the honest number. When people talk about days on market in Monroe County, they usually mean the current listing, which can hide a home that has been available since spring.

Prior pending status

If it went pending and came back, find out why. Your agent can call the listing agent and ask directly. Financing fell through is a very different story from inspection findings. If it was inspection, ask whether a report was shared and whether anything was repaired. Sellers who have already been through one inspection are frequently more realistic on the second.

The photo count and the gaps

Fifteen photos with no basement, no garage, no bathroom shot means someone made a choice. Not always a sinister one, but always a choice. Note what is missing and go look at exactly that.

What the numbers can and cannot tell you

Be careful with the figures you find online. They are measuring different things over different areas, and the spread is wide.

Notice that a county median list price of $319,900 and a county average value of $285,439 are not in conflict. One is what sellers are asking, the other is a modeled value across all homes. And note that the city of Rochester is not Henrietta, Pittsford, Brighton, Mendon, Rush or Honeoye Falls. City figures do not describe the southeast suburbs. Town-level data gets shakier still: aggregator pages for Mendon reported average days listed of 20 as of August 2026 on one site and a median of 101 days for July 2026 on another. A five-fold gap on the same town in the same summer. Use those numbers for orientation, never as the basis of an offer.

How do you make an offer on a stale listing without insulting the seller?

Anchor to the current price and to closed comparable sales, and show your work. A lowball offer in New York is not illegal or rude, but an unexplained one gets a one-line rejection and ends the conversation. An explained one starts a negotiation.

Here is the sequence I use.

1. Price the defect. Get a real number for the roof, the furnace, the electrical panel, the basement. Not a guess. A contractor number or a written estimate range.
2. Pull the closed comps, not the actives. What sold in the last 90 days, in that town, in that condition band. Actives are asking prices. Asking prices are opinions.
3. Set your number from the last reduction. If the seller has already cut twice, they have signaled where they are heading. Meeting the trend line is more persuasive than jumping ahead of it.
4. Put the reasoning in writing. A short cover note listing the three items driving your price, with the estimates attached, changes how the offer lands.
5. Trade terms for price. A seller sitting on a June listing usually wants certainty and a date. A flexible closing, a rent-back, a shorter inspection window, or a larger deposit can be worth real dollars to them and cost you very little.

Buying a house with no competing offers means you get to keep the protections buyers have been waiving all year. Do not throw them away out of habit. Keep the inspection contingency. Keep the appraisal contingency if you are financing. In New York, your attorney reviews the contract before you are bound, so use that window rather than rushing it.

When should you walk away instead?

Walk when the problem is structural, legal or locational, because none of those get cheaper. Water intrusion with an unclear source, foundation movement, an unpermitted addition, a septic system at the end of its life on a lot that cannot support a new field, a lot line dispute: these are not discounts, they are liabilities you are buying. Also walk when the seller will not move at all after ten weeks. A seller who has held one price since June and refuses to engage is not going to become reasonable at the closing table.

The honest test is simple. If the house were correctly priced and correctly presented, would you have bid on it in June? If yes, you are looking at a marketing problem and you should make an offer. If no, no discount fixes it.

Common questions

How many days on market is considered stale in Monroe County?

There is no official threshold, but context helps. The Rochester metro median was 28 days as of November 5, 2025, per HousingWire. A listing past roughly six weeks in the suburbs is worth investigating, and one that has sat since June is worth a full history pull. Higher-priced homes and rural parcels normally take longer, so judge against similar homes rather than against the overall median.

Will a low offer get me blacklisted by the listing agent?

No. Listing agents are required to present all written offers to their seller. What a low offer can do is end the conversation quickly if it arrives with no explanation. Attach your reasoning and your repair estimates, and even a rejected offer usually produces a counter or a phone call.

Should I still get an inspection if the house has been sitting?

Yes, and more so than usual. A long listing period often means a prior buyer walked after an inspection, and you need to know what they found. Ask whether a previous report exists, but never rely on it in place of your own inspector. You want your inspector, working for you, with your questions.

Do mortgage rates change how aggressive I should be?

They change your monthly payment, not the value of the house. The 30-year fixed averaged 6.65% for the week ending August 20, 2026, per Freddie Mac, after running 6.46% in early April 2026 and about 6.58% in late July 2026. Rates moved within the year more than they moved year over year. Lock decisions and offer price are separate conversations, and you should have both before you write.

Can I ask the seller why the house has not sold?

You can, and your agent should. The answer, or the refusal to answer, is information. Sellers relocating on a deadline, settling an estate, or carrying two mortgages have different motivations, and motivation is what determines how far a price moves.

If you are watching a listing that has been sitting and you want a straight read on whether it is a bargain or a money pit, book a time with me. Send me the address first and I will pull the full price and status history before we talk.

Khem Kadariya

About this data

The figures in this post were compiled from publicly available sources including Zillow, Houzeo, Movoto, RochesterFirst and FRED (Federal Reserve Bank of St. Louis), along with other public market data. Real estate numbers change quickly, and these were accurate as of August 2026. For current figures on a specific home, street, or town, ask me directly rather than relying on a published average.