Negotiating for the best price and the best terms when you buy a home is often fraught with uncertainty, and it can be a tough job. Most buyers in the middle of negotiating will say that it is stressful and sometimes frustrating. So what makes negotiating so hard?
Negotiating Can Be Hard
There are many aspects to negotiating a real estate transaction, but there is one variable which can add to the difficulty more than any other. After I tell you, it will be obvious, but many would miss this. The biggest variable working on your side of the negotiating table is your negotiator, and in real estate that would be your Realtor. Let me share some real world scenarios.
Keys to Negotiating Successfully
When you have a reasonable buyer and an experienced and professional Realtor on one side and a reasonable seller and an experienced and professional Realtor on the other side, you have what will be a rational and good negotiating effort. Alas, rarely does a real estate transaction give us the perfect template.
A seller may be a reasonable person, but if that seller is getting poor advice from a Realtor, the negotiating may come to a sudden end. A seller may be reasonable, and their Realtor may not be giving poor advice, but if their Realtor is inexperienced in negotiating, he/she may still chase the buyers away with inappropriate demands or excessive delays, or a buyer may pay too much.
The negotiating experience of Realtors ranges from 1 to 10 on a scale of 10 where 10 is the most experienced. What level of experience would you demand when it comes to spending several hundred thousand dollars of your hard earned money? Many buyers hire a level 1 or 2 or 3 because they don’t do any research. Be careful. It’s your money. Why not find the 9 or 10 and hire him/her.
If there was a single reason to hire the right Realtor, it would be negotiating skills. Everything else depends upon getting mutual acceptance, and if you don’t get that, nothing else matters. Negotiating effectively is everything.
Last Updated on August 2, 2022 by Chuck Marunde
