P.S.
Dad worked in sales his whole life, and did well enough at it that he retired at age 53. His answer to this question, never changes:
Question: "What's it worth?"...
Answer: "Whatever you'll pay for it."
His ability to walk up to someone and offer whatever it's worth to HIM is virtually legendary amongst everyone who knows him.
He walked away from a garage sale with a collector's edition of a particular type of car for $3000 below Blue Book one time, because he pointed at the car under the tarp nearby and asked the lady if she'd take $3500 for it. It was easily worth twice that.
She was well-off, it was a pretty high-end neighborhood garage sale, and her answer was, "I knew I'd have to deal with that sooner or later. My husband says I have to learn how to sell my own cars, and I want my new Jaguar he promised me when I sell it."
Ding. Motivated seller. He said he'd be back from the bank in 30 minutes with a cashier's check. She held to her word, and he drove the car home that day.
No one else that went to that house that day and the garage sale asked about the car, and there was no for sale sign on it. He saw something he'd wanted for a while, and made his offer that was reasonable to him. It wasn't reasonable by any measure in any pricing book, but the car was his at the end of the day.
If dad sees something he wants, he knows what he can afford, and offers that. He either gets it or he doesn't, but I haven't seen him pay anywhere close to "full price" for anything in 20 years.
30+ years in Sales will teach you that people will buy or sell for virtually any reason. And that price is always negotiable, unless it's literally a one-of-a-kind item.
Walk up to 100 people with Skylanes with your low-ball price, sooner or later one of them will take it. After you know that, the market's your oyster.
Seriously. You just never know unless you ask.
And as someone else pointed out, if someone's insulted by your "low-ball" offer, but you offered them exactly what it's worth to YOU... that's their problem. They can be as angry as they want, while you walk away to your car and drive home. You don't even have to be disappointed that they didn't take the offer... it obviously wasn't worth it to them. And you knew your price.
I've done this now at car dealerships for five different vehicles. Walk in, make an offer, tell them it's firm and that additional dealership or handling fees won't be acceptable, wait for them to play their "let's talk to the sales manager" games, for about an hour, leave with the vehicle desired at the price desired.
Only once did I ever walk out without the vehicle, and I felt sorry for the dealer that they were "in it" on that car, that far upside-down. Some other sucker could have it for their price, I was smiling when I walked away, because it wasn't MY price.
The last new car I purchased (for the wife... I drive older stuff...), I faxed the offer to the only dealership in Colorado that had the color and option package she wanted on the lot.
They called in 30 minutes and surprised the heck out of me with, "Can we get $80 more?" Yep. They needed $80 to make their number. I laughed and asked him why $80. He said, "You nailed the number we need for that car, but we did $80 worth of advertising on it since it's been on two different lots."
I asked him, "Would you guys really lose this deal for $80?" He said, yup. You're already at fleet pricing. I was almost laughing too hard to answer when I said, "When should we schedule pickup? You can have your $80."
So yeah, doing your homework on price does pay off.
All of that is the really long way of saying, "If that airplane after you've done all the proper pre-buy inspections and knowing whats in it, is worth $10K to you, offer the dude $10K if you really want it. You just never know what situations people are in.
Here's where it crosses a moral line:
I worked for an aircraft broker once. And not for very long. He never paid up on three aircraft I found him. So I left. He rolled through college kids like candy.
His methods:
He would pay college kids to cold-call every owner in the FAA registry within range of his Aztec. He'd offer them a low-ball price, then go to the bank and take out cashiers checks... one for 10%-15% lower than the offer, which was always followed up with a fax and standard wording that the aircraft must be "as described", and two or three more to make up the difference.
The week I quit working for him was when he offered to have me come along to pick up an aircraft about 80 miles away. We blasted off in the Aztec, landed at the airport, and he hopped out of the airplane and went to work... studying the logs of the aircraft, acting alternatively interested, and pointing out every little flaw he could find. Then he announced that he would buy it, but that he only had that first check for the 10%-15% lower price with him, as he was going to get the money from another account, or whatever he mumbled that day.
I watched the owner mull it over for about 30 seconds, and take that check. And hand over the title and registration and keys to his aircraft. My boss, the new owner, locked up the airplane, said he'd be back to get it later that day (I wasn't qualified at the time to fly either aircraft, and the one he bought was out of annual...) and moved the airplane to a tie-down and locked it up with his own padlock and gust lock system he had just for the occasion, and we blasted off.
I learned how sleazy airplane salesmen could be that day. And I learned how variable aircraft pricing is.
I don't recommend this as a way to make friends, be a moral person, or run any business... but just as a way to point out that once someone decides to sell, if their personal finances are such that they can afford a hit, often-times they took it.
I have no idea what he would have done or said to the guy if he'd have had to pull out the other two checks and add them to the extra-lowball check. But I'm sure he probably had some interesting pre-rehearsed lines. "Oh, here's a check in my wallet that was supposed to be the down payment on the next aircraft we're flying down to pick up later today. Would you take that?" Stuff like that, I'm sure... but I'm only guessing.
Mix Mr. Sleazy aircraft broker's story there with dad's wisdom, and you can find deals on airplanes. They're out there. You'll have to burn a lot of shoe leather and phone calls to find 'em, but they're out there. Especially in this economy.
Indeed...