Questions about property listed a looong time on MLS...

[Kimberly T.]

I've been researching some new markets to buy rentals (multifamily) in, and saw one 10 unit property that seemed to have some good numbers, very interesting. It was purchased in 2007 by a local realtor, then listed for sale (for more than purchase price) in 2008. Since then, it has repeatedly had the price lowered, pulled from MLS, relisted a few months later with a lower price. Several times. Its most recent list price was significantly lower than the original purchase price. Seems like the owner just wants out. It was pulled off the MLS again just a few weeks ago. Another similar property not too far away sold about a year ago for about 93% of the most recent list price. So, a couple questions:

1) What red flags does this raise in your mind? I've considered that perhaps there is some deferred maintenance (though the building is only 15 yrs old) that other buyers didn't want, perhaps they're using a crummy PM that's resulting in bad tenants/high turnover/high maintenance costs, or maybe there just aren't a lot of buyers for commercial properties in that area (suburb-ish town of a larger city). What possibilities have I not thought of?

2) If we decide to pursue this property, what method do you recommend? We could contact the owner (a realtor) directly to negotiate, or get another local realtor to represent us. We've never negotiated directly with an owner who was a realtor before, we've always had a buyer's agent, though we have used the listing agent as our buyer's agent a couple times with good results.