To become a successful real estate investor, it's critical that you become a good negotiator. This is a lifelong learning curve, of course, but you can never go wrong by studying the negotiating process and improving your techniques.

The bottom line for successful negotiation is: get what you want by giving sellers what they want. There are some basic rules you'll want to learn--and then follow religiously--when you enter into a negotiating situation.

The first one is that you can only negotiate with someone who is actually willing to negotiate. If a seller has no real motivation to sell a piece of property, there is little that you can do to increase your position in the process. If there is nothing they particularly need, there isn't anything you can offer that will fill that need. If you run into sellers who are in this position, it may be best to simply walk away and move on to the next property.

Non-motivated sellers have dominated the real estate scene in 2005, and many homes have actually sold for above the listed prices, since there has been a glut of buyers who have bid prices up. In such a seller