Gladys
How are you paying for the purchase?
If you are paying cash, then you have some great leverage. If there are multiple properties on the market you might be able to get them to work against each other.

If you financing your purchase, the process will be more complicated. Appraisers use closed sales as a measure of value, so hiring an appraiser might be your best bet.

It seems hard to believe that there were no sales in the past two years. I am curious, who provided you with that information? It might make more sense to ask a Realtor. You could also ask the county assessor .

If you have a property picked out, why not hire a bank appraiser and, with everyone's permission, ask your agent to show you the home and bring the appraiser along. That way you can get an idea what the bank thinks the home is worth and how much of a mortgage they would even allow.

That's a very good question, and I'm looking forward to seeing the other responses on it. One thing I would do, however, is work with a realtor who can weed out houses for sale that have been purchased within the last 3 to 4 years. Those are houses that were purchased at the top of the market, and the sellers aren't likely in a position to bring the price down to what the values should be currently.