Few situations are as frustrating as a professional real estate negotiation that is going around in circles with no end in sight. All reasonable attempts to move through the contract points are met with evasions or outright ignored. Your opponent may be stalling or using the back burner negotiation tactic for reasons that you cannot see. To stop the pointless waste of time, you might use anger to make the [...]

With so many details part of a professional real estate negotiation, it can sometimes be necessary to repeat a request for clarity or inclusion. You want to make sure that your client’s interests are accurately represented in the negotiation. But what if the opposing side of the table deliberately “forgets” to include your request or address your client’s concerns? With the broken record negotiation tactic you should continually repeat a [...]

Using the back burner negotiation tactic can be an effective way to stall a negotiation that is not going favorably for you. And in so doing, you may bring pressure to bear on the opposite side of the table to make concessions that will bring your side of the table back into the real estate negotiation. As an example, consider that your buyer has made an offer that includes having [...]

In professional real estate negotiations, an offer is only serious (and legally binding) if it is put in writing. Therefore, make all serious offers in writing. By putting the offer on paper you set an anchor point to begin the rest of the negotiation. But sometimes an offer in writing is used as a fishing expedition, e.g. a low-ball offer just to see how the seller will respond. When that [...]

The problem transfer negotiation tactic in real estate negotiation means to literally give your problem to the other party to solve. In doing so, you can open up the door to more exchanges that can create options for agreement. For example, if the buyer’s agent presents comps that show a home is worth $290K, the buyer offer will not go higher than $290K. If the seller refuses to go below [...]

The purpose of the all-I-can-afford negotiation tactic is to establish a limit or a target - artificial or real - to focus the real estate negotiation on not exceeding that limit. This tactic can be used successfully by agents for both buyers and sellers. On the buyer’s side of the table: all I can afford to spend. On the seller’s side of the table: all I can afford to reduce. [...]

The full disclosure negotiation tactic can be an effective approach to quickly line up the needs of both the buyer and the seller in a real estate negotiation. With full disclosure, agents literally put all of their cards on the table in order to reach agreement swiftly. Trust is the key to this situation. With the full disclosure real estate negotiation tactic, you share openly with the other party exactly [...]

The good cop/bad cop negotiation tactic has much in common with the compare/contrast persuasion principle – making the desired outcome look even more favorable when compared to something worse. If you often negotiate as a team, the good cop/bad cop negotiation tactic is easy to set up. Decide ahead of time that one of you will always be kind and helpful, while the other is mean, negative, and the deliverer [...]

We have all seen the iconic good cop/bad cop approach acted out in hundreds of movies and television programs. Sometimes it is done smoothly and sometimes comically, but always the goal is to have the opposing party become so emotionally overwrought with the bad cop, that the good cop can step in, win their allegiance, and negotiate a better conclusion because he is, “on their side.” This negotiation tactic is [...]

In real estate negotiations, concessions can be won if the opposing agent feels that he or she is getting something special – that they can return to the broker as a triumphant hero. Similar to the scarcity persuasion principle, the hero negotiation tactic lets the opposing agent perceive that he has won something hard to get. If your clients need to stick to a certain price point, for example, offer [...]