End user needs advice on how to buy specific name

[needname]

Hello, I'm an end user who's fixated on a certain generic, brandable domain for my business, but I'm having a hard time getting the domainer to engage. I would love your advice. They own thousands of domains that are listed on sedo as "make offer." What's happened so far:

- I emailed directly an offer in the low-mid hundreds to test the waters, and they said that's too low, they weren't interested. They wouldn't offer a counter.

- A while later, my friend emailed an offer in the low $x,xxx, and got no response.

I don't have deep pockets and am funding everything myself, but I'd be willing to pay about $5K or so, which seems more than fair given sales histories for very similar names on namebio. Do you have any advice on how I should approach this seller again? I could use sedo's "make offer" functionality, or use a broker, but I'd rather save on the transaction fees if I can. And I don't want to signal that I can pay a lot by using a broker, when in fact I can't.

Thanks for any input!
NeedName

 

[forge]

Now I'm confused. To the OP, in your first post you stated the domain is generic. Later down the line you say it's a non-word. Which is it?

If it's generic and 4 letters, no surprise the seller is ignoring your offers.