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 negotiations
I 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.