One issue that often seems to be on a buyer's mind these days is the question of how much they should be able to negotiate off of an asking price for a house.  Let's take a look at closings from the past 30 days to provide some insight into what buyers are actually accomplishing right now in the market.

Examining all residential sales in Harrisonburg and Rockingham County (10/17/2008 - 11/16/2008) we find...

• 51 residential properties have sold
• The average sale price to list price ratio is 97.39%.
• The median sale price to list price ratio is 97.87%.

Buyers are still coming relatively close to the asking price --- within 3%.  Taking a closer look, of the 51 properties that sold:

• Only 1 buyer managed to negotiate more than 10% off the asking price (sales price of $100k, sale/list ratio of 77%)
• Only 8 other buyers managed to negotiate more than 5% off the asking price (sales prices of $101k, $113k, $167k, $170k, $210k, $249k, $318k, $441k)
  

If you're considering buying in the near future, you should realize that this is certainly a buyer's market, but you won't necessarily have the ability to negotiate more than 10% off the asking price.