Negotiation is in Your
DNA - The Only Thing
You Can Haggle
is the Sale of Your Home How to Negotiate Like Your
Ancestors For a Real
Estate Transaction.
Negotiate like your life depends on it.
Jefffrey Bucholtz
Jeffrey is a Real Esate Broker,
blogger , big thinker
Newsletter
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Picture this: 15,000 years ago, somewhere near a river, two hairy, unwashed early humans—let’s call them Grug and Blorg—are deep in
negotiations over a freshly caught salmon. Grug, an expert spear-thrower, has just landed a hefty fish. Blorg, on the other hand, is a skilled toolmaker who knows Grug needs a new spear tip. The barter begins.
Back in the cave man days everything had to be negotiated.
Three stones for this rock. Nice fish for your glowing fire ember. Well I like raw fish probably way more than you and bargaining, and negotiation is in our collective DNA because it is essential.
These modern days we don’t get a chance to practice it too often, in fact most people find it stressful, but some find it exhilarating.
But the truth is in the sale of your home, you are not likely to get a full priced cash offer with zero contingencies that will close in a week.
If you do – boy have I done a good job, but would you ask yourself “could we have priced it higher?” its not because of the price, its the fear that you left something on the table that you lost the negotiations.
Know your terms
If we’ve received an offer, that means we listed your home, if we’ve listed your home, that means we’ve fully marketed the property, there is pro photos, internet exposure to like 200 websites, word of mouth marketing, gorilla marketing to our existing network of buyers, even the listing launch event, so we know that your property has full exposure to all the buyers in the price bracket and all the things we’ve done have made your property the obvious choice.
But before all that happens we help you run the numbers, so you know exactly where you stand. We will run the numbers again when we consider offers, but there are also terms to consider that are intangible like a quick closing, or minimal hassle from appraisers and inspectors.
In the buyer empowerment era numbers and transparency are at the for front as they should be.
The Dealmaking Landscape
So the offer comes in and its super exciting, and hopefully nowadays we have more than one to choose from. Now what we do is we sit down in person or virtually and go over each offer, we look at the bottom line, how much you are going to net, but also potential trouble spots of each offer weather it be financing, closing date, concessions, inspections or anything else that might come up.
The offer is not a done deal it is more like an out line of what needs to be done in order to close escrow. We will go over each detail so that you the seller understand exactly what will happen so there’s nothing unexpected.
But we have clearly defined your goals already so we know to keep the eyes on the prize, we know what we can do the grease the wheels and we know what is off the table.
Think You Win - Not Win -Win
You win by getting what you want, and for most people that is top dollar for their home and a quick hassle free close of escrow.
The best way to do both of those things is to have multiple buyers. When your property is listed we generate so much attention that we often attract multiple buyers. While your home is under contract we continue to market it for potential buyers to wrote back up offers.
In know that we only need one buyer, but when that buyer knows there is someone else to pick up the deal they are way less likely to dicker about a low appraisal or a bad home inspection.
Jeff Bucholtz
Jeff Bucholtz is a Real Estate Broker based in Three Oaks MI.
He has sold more than 100 Million Dollars in Real Estate.