The Secret to Negotiations for FSBO Sellers
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 similar mindset. When seller and buyer
are thinking along the lines outlined above, and each
acknowledges the possibility of working out a deal in which both
buyer and seller come away feeling like winners, the stage is
set for successful negotiations. It is fortunate that most folks
do think along these lines.
It's also helpful that buyers and sellers are not always focused
on the same things to the same degree. Price might be more
important to one, and the time of the sale's completion more
important to the other. Sometimes negotiations are just a matter
of balancing things out.
Typical Pattern
Successful negotiations don't usually drag on for a long period
of time. There's usually an offer, and a counter-offer which is
accepted. Many times the first offer is actually accepted if it
is the result of a conversation between buyer and seller where
subtle negotiations took place. At most, successful negotiations
are usually concluded with an offer, a counter offer, and a
counter-counter offer. It's usually a sign that the deal is not
going to work out if negotiations continue much beyond that.
There are exceptions to everything, of course, and the minuet of
negotiations can go on for quite some time where two people who
love to negotiate are involved. However, even in those cases,
most of it tends to be verbal with the written sales contract
changed very few times.
The biggest point of this article is don't get intimidated. If
you stay objective, you will be able to get what you need from
your home.