We bought july last year and our palce was advertised as 315+ we didn't want to go over 300 though and our first offer was 285 and loads of "no we want minimum 310 / 305" junk we ended up buying it for 297k and were happy. like div said, we had done our research in the area and knew what similar houses were going for which was low to mid 3's, but also knew that ours was in a fantastic spot but cosmetically was not in great shape, we got a bargain!!

Do some research into the areas you are looking at!