How to Negotiate When Buying Or Selling a House

Negotiation is an essential part of any real estate exchange and can literally make or break a potential purchase or sale. Negotiating when buying or selling a house can be challenging as both the buyer and seller are emotionally involved in the negotiations. Buyers can easily offend sellers by making an offer way below the asking price or by inserting conditions in the contract that the sellers might never agree to. On the other hand sellers can easily offend buyers by an unwillingness to negotiate on price or by stipulating perhaps a long settlement period. If you are buying or selling a house it’s important to maintain control over your emotions so that you don’t let an opportunity slip by that may have been easily resolved.

How to Negotiate When Buying or Selling a House:
The centre of the negotiations is the real estate agent. The real estate agent knows the Vendor’s (Seller’s) situation as well as the buyers’ situation which gives them the ultimate edge as well as control over the direction of the negotiations. That’s why it’s important that you work with a reliable and professional real estate agent particularly if you’re sell my house fast jefferson county. The real estate agent can influence the negotiations by providing the right information.

Negotiating over the purchase or sale of a property can be fun, exciting and enjoyable or it can be daunting, intimidating and a completely negative experience. The basis of all negotiating is the people involved and their motives within the negotiations. When you’re buying a house is a good idea to ask the agent why the owner is selling their house.

If you can find out the Vendor’s motive for selling their house you might be able to:
– Pay considerably less for the house
– Help the Vendor solve a problem (if one exists)
– Use the Vendor’s situation to your advantage (eg. They’re moving interstate and need to sell asap)
– Secure Vendor finance for a portion of the purchase price (this could result in not having to outlay any money from your own pocket)
– Gain access to the property prior to settlement (This is useful if you’d like to start organising quotes for renovating the house)

Here are some tips to help your negotiations go smoothly when you’re buying or selling a house:

Buying or Selling a House – Tip # 1: Be flexible
Being stubborn in negotiations can lead to a quick end to the negotiation and the buyer or seller will walk away from any potential deal

Buying or Selling a House – Tip # 2: Be open-minded
A buyer or seller may have a particular request or condition in the contract. Be open to considering these conditions as it’s sometimes the little things that can make for a successful purchase or sale. Even things such as price can be irrelevant if there are any out of the ordinary requests or conditions.

Buying or Selling a House – Tip # 3: Try not to reveal your ‘bottom line’ to early
Always keep something up your sleeve to use later on. For example, you might say your bottom price is 295,000 when it fact you would accept 285,000 for the house. As a buyer you might say your top-price is 285,000 when in fact you’re willing to spend 295,000.

Buying or Selling a House – Tip # 4: Keep positive
If you’re sincerely interested in buying or selling, keep your mind focused on a successful outcome, the outcome that you desire. Saying ‘We’ll never get it for that price’ might become a self-fulfilling prophecy. Take the attitude that if it’s meant to happen, it will!

Buying or Selling a House – Tip # 5: Use urgency to your advantage
If the buyer or seller is in a position where they have to buy or sell quickly, use this as a tool in when you’re negotiating. Urgency has a funny way of creating flexibility when none existed before.