Hi - I picked up an interesting negotiation technique that worked pretty good.
I recently sold a place where the seller was asking 519K - which was 100K below anything else in the building. My clients came to town determined to get a "steal" and were only going to be able to justify the purchase in their own minds if that is what they got. They were only in town for a few days and if they didn't find something while here, it was much less like they would end up buying anytime soon.
They really liked the place and offered 479K. They indicated a willingness to go up 495K.
The seller responded through their agent with 505K. The seller pointed out how their place was already 100K below anything else and really priced to sell. (which was true).
So, instead of taking the 505K right back to my buyer - I waited a few hours and called the seller and basically said that I know my client won't go higher than 495K. See if you get the seller to accept 495 and we will not counter that - I will do my best to get my buyer to go for 495K. (which was an extremely good deal).
The seller agreed. So, when I called the buyer - I just said that I had good news - and totally presented it as such. It actually was good news. But, instead of calling the buyer right away and telling them about the 505K - which I knew would disappoint them, I decided to see if that step could be bypassed.
From that I and other negotiations, I could see that doing my best to ethically avoid presenting bad new or disappointing news - and presenting "good news" was very effective.
Everyone was happy and I kept any unnecessary negativity out of the process.
Sheldon Goldberg
Broker Dream Realty
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