An offer we must refuse

I'm sure you can imagine my surprise yesterday when we received an offer on the old house via email. It was a little odd, though. Clearly, it had been filled out on the computer, which is fine, but they had left the price blank, and there was no signature page or reply by date (those are on the same sheet of paper), so we really didn't know what the offer was for. They also attached a pre-approval letter that showed them approved for quite a bit less than the list price, and rather less than we really want/need to get. We were intending to counter with something closer to what we want, but we couldn't until we got a complete offer package.

The official signed and complete offer came today. The offer is not even for the pre-approval amount, they're offering many thousand less! It's only about 80% of the list price. Not only is that less than what we owe, it also wouldn't cover any part of closing costs (which they asked for) or commission, which would all have to come out of our pockets. Not from our profits, of which there would be none (and we're prepared for that), but from our savings account. We're talking big bucks here.

We simply cannot accept. Knowing what they are pre-approved for, I'm not sure it's even worth countering. And to offer substantially less than that? They must be hoping we're desperate to sell, about to be foreclosed on, or something. We are not that desperate (yet). Give us about a year, and we'll reconsider, but right now, it would be foolish to take it. It's only been on the market about 10 days, and it is getting some traffic. We'll wait. And hope.

Currently feeling: hating this whole process