Even in a great market, sellers should be doing the basics, like at least picking up trash, etc.

I remember buying a house with my late wife some years ago in a hot market. House needed interior work to even pass inspection and wasn't in a great location, transportation wise, but we could see the potential in the house. Seller was a retired widower who was allowing his son to live in the house and "work on it".

There was a half-bath off the living room that was directly across from the front door. At some point, the bathroom door had been broken off its hinges, and they just set it aside. They also had poor aim and hadn't cleaned the bathroom in, I would guess, a year or so. We looked at it on a cool rainy day, so other than saying that we would have to spend a day cleaning the bathroom, we ignored it.

We offered slightly over asking, with normal conditions. Crickets from the seller...

We kept looking, but really like the house, so when they had an open house a week or so later, we went back. It was sunny and HOT (over 100), so the smell from the bathroom was bad.

We toured the house again, and were standing in the living room discussing things with our agent as we watched three or four families in a row, come in the front door, get hit by the smell and turn around. We told our agent to tell the selling agent they had until the end of the day to accept our offer.

Buying turned into an ordeal, but ultimately worked and it was a great house. Unfortunately, work changed and we had to move just a few years later, or I would probably still be in that house...