Its not optimistic, its possible, I paid £11650 for mine back in November with 39K and great spec, i then spent another £450-500 getting it how I wanted it so its entitely possible to gget an 08 plate with great spec for £12k, poverty spec 08 plates in red/black/silver I would not be paying more than £11k for them.
Depends how hard your willing to push the seller.
Bottom line if you prepared to wait and haggle hard you can do well, if the seller sniffs desperation from you to buy one your hooked and he knows it, do your homework and go prepared.
Taken from a post on another forum by myself:-
"and yes I talked him down from £13K after I went armed with lots of previous listings/prices, CAP values and several "Unsold" listings from ebay and the prices and details of the last 6 ED30's that BCA had sold , he soon understood he was VERY unlikely to get what he asked
I would not feel too bad making a "Sensible" offer, I know folks say the book is rubbish (depends which book) but I got my brother (in the lease indusrty) to give me CAP values so I went on those and got mine at Cap middle so yeah the parkers guides may be off but teh CAP figures are what industry uses and those seem fine.
I was looking at another 3 dr 08 plate Ed30 DSG, Park Sensors but no other options (basic then) which came up for auction at BCA and CAP was £10750 to £11350, I then bought my car but went anyway out of curiosity to see what t went for, it went for £11150 pretty much bang in the middle of figures my bro quoted me, it appeared 9 days later sat on a VW dealers forecourt at £14995 If they found a buyer for that it must have been the easiest £3.5K they ever made
"