When it comes to buying or selling a home, the idea of having to negotiate can be intimidating. Most of us aren’t aware we have negotiating skills even though we skillfully negotiate daily. (Who walks the dog, takes the children to school, goes out to pick up lunch, prepares the report, etc., etc.?) Let’s debunk some myths about negotiating, shall we?
This Is Not Negotiable
Sellers often say to themselves, “This is the deal I’m willing to make. It’s not negotiable.” That’s not necessarily because there is no room to negotiate. It is the simple result of anxiety about negotiating.
Take this approach and you may be chasing away otherwise good potential buyers. The buyer gets into a huff about the seller’s inflexibility and everything goes down hill from there. This need not happen. Sellers should be willing to enter into reasonable negotiations and just remember that they can say “no” at any point along the way toward working out a deal. However, they need to ask themselves when each subject comes up, “Am I willing to lose this deal over this point?”
The buyer needs to have a...