an offer you can accept, or you will at least have more knowledge about what price the buyer has in mind, and if there will be a possibility of compromise.
“MEETING IN THE MID G IN THE MIDDLE”
Even in the simplest of sales transactions, agreeing on a price often includes “meeting in the middle.” For instance, a buyer speaks first and offers to buy an item for $150, when the seller is expecting to sell for $200. Most sellers will split the difference and counteroffer $175. The seller should instead counteroffer with $220, which keeps the midpoint at $200. The buyer may take the offer or agree to $205, which is slightly more than what the seller planned to ask for. Maximize your negotiating by counter- offering in small increments. However, in some circumstance, "time is of the essence". Buyer can lose disinterest or react negatively to repeated aggressive negotiating. Here is a case in point: Back when the real estate market was not hot, and very much a buyer's market, when the average price of a home was probably about $100,000, I had an "average" home listed at $100,000. After some time on the market, we received an offer of $90,000. I knew that my difficult seller would not see this as good thing. So, when I brought him the offer and presented it to him at his dining room table, I prefaced it as diplomatically as I could. I said, "I want you to know that this is not what you had hoped for, and that this price is not coming from, but the buyer and his agent; but it is a starting point." When he saw the offer price, he flew into a rage, got up, and stomped back into his bedroom! I sat there, dumbfounded, and wondered what to do next. I sat there and waited, and eventually he came back out to the table. I pointed out to him that just because their offer was so low, didn't mean that they wouldn't accept a counter. He was adamant that if those "blankety blanks want my house, they can *#%@**** pay full price for it!" I tried to calm him by saying, "these buyers are just doing what buyers do, trying to get a good deal. Usually if you throw them a bone with a small price drop,
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