Time to play hardball. I'm nearly 30 but look like I'm not quite out of my early 20's, and my husband is mid 20's and looks like he's early 20's too, so I'm sure they think we're stupid.
I'm so hooked on this story too, and I'm soo glad you backed out! Hubby & I own rental properties, and we both look young for our age, so we often get this same assumption. A few years back, we were renovating a unit and our realtor showed up w/a possible tenant. We began speaking w/the prospective tenant, and he seemed interested, so he asked us where our Mom was. We were puzzled by this comment, and quickly realized that the tenant assumed our realtor was our Mom, and we were just kids helping out! When we informed them that we were the owners, you could just see the confusion on their face.
As for your situation, I have a similar one to share. I looked at a duplex listed @ $70K. Three kids trying to sell their deceased parents home. They refused to do any clean out, they wouldn't even replace the hot water heater! The place needed work, so we countered at $60K and waited weeks while they discussed the offer.
During that time, a pristine duplex came on the market, and we decided we wanted that instead. Our realtor set a deadline of 5 PM that day for the kids to accept or decline the contract. They came back at $68K. We declined, so no deal. We proceeded to purchase the other property.
Several months went by, and my realtor dropped a hint. No one else was biting, even w/a price drop to $60K, so they were calling my realtor, trying to see if we were still interested. We really weren't financially ready to buy another house, so my realtor told them we weren't interested.
Another month went by, and they called the realtor again, this time they were willing to go to $55K. I decided to be a bit ballsy, so I told the realtor to have them call when they were willing to go to $40K. We purchased it several weeks later for $42K! Used a 401K loan to buy it, but at that price, it was a steal.
You will have a similar story to tell in the near future, just hang on and watch their greed falter them in the end. ;)