Some Keys to Negotiation as an FSBO Seller
Friday, December 12th, 2008When some hear the word “negotiation”, they often cringe, run, hide, or just generally cower in fear and terror. Who likes negotiating for anything? Leave it to the quick-witted salesperson types who can bargain anything down to their liking, right? Well, if you’re an FSBO seller trying to sell your home FSBO, shoring up your side of negotiations is a key tactic in selling your home for the price you want to. Negotiation doesn’t have to be something that we fear and avoid, since we wind up doing it daily without even realizing it. But let’s talk a little bit about negotiating when it comes to selling your home, and see if we can ease the tension that so many people have about it.
Some sellers are burdened with the fact that they have a set house price that they want to sell at, and they don’t want to go any lower than that. This handcuffs them when it’s time for negotiations, especially since there’s no room to negotiate the price. But this also deters you from getting the sale done quicker and more efficiently. You could be turning away perfectly good buyers because of your stubbornness. You need to figure out at what point you can continue to negotiate at, and at what point you have to say no and end the negotiations. But not having a chance to have some back and forth negotiations can make you lose a deal that you can’t afford to lose. You can always say no during the negotiations, but how do you know how it’s going to go if you don’t open it up to negotiations to begin with?
One thing to remember about negotiations over home price is that they don’t necessarily have to be knock down, drag out warfare. In fact, the length of time it takes for your negotiations to carry through is a good indicator of how it is going. The longer it takes, the worse off it’s going, and you might as well end it before it gets personal. Most negotiations over a home sale goes back once or twice between the parties with an offer, then a counter offer, and then a counter to the counter offer.
Negotiating a home transaction doesn’t have to be too big of a hassle if you give the buyer some wiggle room on your price. You have to figure out if sticking to one price point is worth the extra length of time to sell you home, if you sell your home at all being stuck on that one figure. Being flexible can and will allow your home to sell faster and have more buyers willing to do business with you.