Negotiating with Sellers

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Negotiating With Sellers

How Do You Negotiate To Get What You Want?

You’ve found the right home, but it’s a little out of your price range, or you need to move in a little sooner than the seller wants. How do you negotiate to get what you want? Sellers and buyers should expect to negotiate some parts of the purchase offer. Your agent Rosalyne Cohen and the seller’s agent are experienced negotiators who will keep requests reasonable, non- emotional and on track. To put yourself in the best position to negotiate, make your offer strong from the beginning.

Provide Support For Your Offer
If you offer below the seller’s asking price, support it by showing how you arrived at the number.Your agent Rosalyne Cohen can provide you with a comparable market analysis so you have a better idea of what homes similar to the one you’re buying are selling for.
Negotiations Based On Financing
Strong offers come from preapproved buyers. Get preapproved by your lender, so the seller knows you have already begun the loan process and know how much you can afford. If you have a financing contingency and haven’t begun the approval process yet, your seller has no reason to take your offer or negotiations seriously.

Find Out What The Seller Wants

Ask your agent Rosalyne Cohen to contact the seller’s agent to find out more what the seller wants as far as terms, as well as what the seller is willing or unwilling to do. The more your offer matches up with the seller’s needs in terms of move-out dates, closing date, etc., the more likely your offer will be accepted, or at least countered.

Find out when the house will be vacated, if it isn’t already, which may tell you if the seller is under pressure, perhaps making two house payments. Also, you’ll want to review a seller’s disclosure of the condition and improvements to the house. Find out if any further repairs or improvements are intended by the seller.

Beat The Competition
Your agent Rosalyne Cohen must find out if other offers are on the table. The seller may be less likely to bend on price or repairs if there are other offers.
Limit Contingencies
Sellers want clean, uncomplicated transactions, with as few “ifs” as possible. If you have a contingency such as a home for sale, it puts you at a disadvantage, but sometimes they simply can’t be helped. You may have a house to sell, or you may be transferred by your company and your purchase date must coincide with your start date. Explain in a letter to the seller what your contingency is and how it can be resolved. If your closing is in a week, it’s reasonable to ask the seller for an extended closing. But if you haven’t put your home on the market yet, there’s no reason for the seller to negotiate on this point.

Negotiating After Inspections

If your offer is accepted, negotiations may not be over quite yet. During the inspection process, your inspector may reveal something unexpected that needs to be fixed. Negotiate a repair or improvement is when the system is unsafe or a major repair is needed to make the system operate effectively. If the repair is minor, you may want the seller to fix it, but that could also be a risk. What if the seller received a back-up contract at a higher price? He could use your request for repairs to get out of the contract.

Keeping negotiations to a minimum is best. Every time you open negotiations, your purchase contract is no longer in play, so pick your battles carefully.