Go with what you can afford. If they've been holding it for 9 years and not using it, eventually whatever you can afford ( within reason ) will be better than continuing to make nothing off it.
UNLESS they are getting click-through advertising revenue on it, or funneling traffic to another domain of theirs which advertises, or has direct sales on it; then you need to factor that in.
But it's best to be a human being and level with them. Remember, they're people. Really opportunistic people. And, if you can, just give up and get another TLD of the same basic name.
Make sure that you don't tip your hand. If they know that it's your name dot com, they're going to have significant pricing power (you can't get your name dot com anywhere else). If they think that it's just a tentative pen name dot com that you haven't started using yet, you have significant pricing power (you can just pick another name).
True. Yet am I not in a position of power to exert pressure on the sale due to limited size / discoverability of the market to the seller? Good point re: tentativeness aspect though. Thanks!
UNLESS they are getting click-through advertising revenue on it, or funneling traffic to another domain of theirs which advertises, or has direct sales on it; then you need to factor that in.
But it's best to be a human being and level with them. Remember, they're people. Really opportunistic people. And, if you can, just give up and get another TLD of the same basic name.