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Do your homework and you might be able to make an aggressively low offer that a seller will accept -- or at least counter.

Home sellers are not automatically turning up their noses at offers that come in far below their asking prices these days as prices stagnate and the inventory of homes for sale remains elevated in many markets.

But buyers who ask for deep discounts still risk offending sellers to the point where they ruin any chance at making a deal. So before making an aggressive offer, some homework is in order. Further, buyers need to effectively explain why the price of a home should be lower.

There's a danger of them taking it too personally, When you're making the offer, if you justify that offer with outside data, then it's much less likely to be perceived as being an insult or (to the buyer) not as serious.

Here are some guidelines on how and when to make an aggressive offer for a home:

Certain sellers are going to be more willing than others to negotiate a low offer, and there are several clues that might indicate more leeway on price. For instance, if the sellers have already purchased another home and that sale has closed, they're likely to be more willing to make a deal.

And certainly if the property has been on the market for a long time, sellers will be interested in entertaining any offers.  The nuggets of information a buyer's agent gets can be clues as to what kind of offers they'll consider. Overall local market conditions also play a role. The housing market in many parts of the country are sluggish, and many homes have been on the market for a year or more.

When putting together an aggressive offer, create a cover letter explaining exactly where that number came from.

In addition to citing comparable sales in making the offer, it also could be important to include details regarding the amount of inventory in the immediate surrounding area, a good buyers agent can assist in this.

If just the relative values of the houses that sold, were looked at in many markets, you might end up paying too much for that house because the values will continue to fall in some areas. If there is two years' worth of inventory, in any specific market, you should be buying 5%, potentially 10% less than what houses have sold for in the past year in the neighborhood.

Buyers may even personally write a letter to the sellers to make their point, as they did when the market was hot and they aimed to stand out from the crowd. That way, they can detail what they like about the house but express their fear of future dropping values.

That's still not to say the seller will respond positively.

The difficulty we're having in the market right now is sale prices are not dropping much, things are just staying on the market longer. Buyers read about how terrible the market is sellers don't want to budge because they're reading that prices aren't falling.

A word of warning to buyers making very low offers, is that the seller might refuse to negotiate. On a super-aggressive offer, there's maybe a one-in-ten chance there will be a positive response.

Still, there's that potential for a seller to counteroffer, especially if there hasn't been many other bids. Sellers are beginning to think of a low offer, not as an insult but as a sign of interest.

It begins the dialogue regarding the purchase of a house. Also, not all hope is lost even if a seller doesn't bite immediately.

Sometimes after time elapses, the seller comes around and decides to negotiate. Or new information -- such as the sale of a comparable home at a lower price -- can nudge a seller to give an offer, even an aggressive one, a second look and open the negotiation process.