There are a million versions of how to negotiate, but coming from a dog-eat-dog market like L.A., I’m going to share what I found to be the best negotiation strategies as a real estate agent.
The first rule of thumb is to kill them with kindness.
So let’s say we’re talking about an overpriced property. It’s listed at $1 million, but it’s only worth $900,000.
I could call up the other agent and say, “You’re house is way over market price. It’s never going to happen. I’m just going to wait for a price reduction.”
But that’s just going to make that other agent think I’m a jerk and create an adversarial.
A much better route would be to call and say: “I see you’re on the market for a million. I get it. I imagine your seller wanted you to price it there. Here’s what I’m going to do: I’m going to give you an offer of $900,000, let’s just kick it backward and forward and keep the ball in the air to see if we can find a place in the middle where everyone agrees.”
This accomplishes four things:
It puts the power back in the other agent’s hands It shows respect It avoids being aggressive It opens the door for negotiationsI was never intimidated by negotiation gaps. I’d always attempt even the most outlandish negotiation. And I always did it with kindness — especially when delivering bad news.
I found that if I could extract goodwill, trust and an essence of camaraderie from my counterpart, I stand a way better chance of getting through than I do if I’m aggressive.
Peter Lorimer is the CEO of Beverly Hills, California-based PLG Estates.
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