Let’s say you’ve been negotiating hard. You want to buy a home, for example, but the seller is getting hard-nosed about accepting your offers.
If you’re submitting offers on a property that have included inspection contingencies – this means you have the authority to inspect the home and ask for repairs to be done by the seller – try submitting your next offer without this clause and say that you’ll take the property “as is”. Always remember to keep your right to inspect the property before closing though. You want to have the ability to drop the deal if there’s something very wrong with the property.
Let’s say it’s the opposite situation. You know the house has been vacant for a while. There isn’t much competition going after that property. The mortgage is low or it’s been paid off in full. Tell the seller you’ll accept his offer but only if you can push back the date of the closing by three months, plus having full right of possession and access to the property – this means having the key to the home. If the seller accepts, this is a perfect opportunity to flip this house within those three months and make a nice profit.
In your real estate investing experiences you’ll undoubtedly come across that seller that just doesn’t want to negotiate with you and you know the price is too high to make a nice profit on. What you want to do is tell the real estate agent that you’ll submitting a new counter-offer in a week. When you submit this new offer, add $100 to what you originally offered. If it’s not accepted, add $100 to the offer the next week. Keep doing this, adding $100 each week. This may just hook the seller into reopening negotiations with you.
If there seems to be absolutely no budge, remember what I mentioned about being willing to walk away from any deal and do exactly that – walk away! The seller may just sense that you’re being real about closing all negotiations and can sometimes agree to your terms.
Like I’ve said before, if the deal is unbelievable then why waste time negotiating a slightly lower price and let some other investor take it out from under you? Don’t negotiate and get it done now! However, if the deal isn’t that amazing or if you think there really isn’t going to be any other buyers making offers, then it’s time to bring out the big negotiation guns. Negotiating is one of, if not THE, most highly paid per hour careers available. You can make thousands of dollars by using negotiating techniques. When doing real estate investing or any other type of negotiations, remember that all good negotiators walk away from more deals than they close. Don’t think you have to close on any deal or opportunity that pops up on your lap. It’s better to pass on 5 average deals and hit on 1 amazing deal than to strike out on potentially financially catastrophic deals.
