Whether you are buying or selling a home, don’t lose sight of your end goal during the negotiating process
Whether you are buying or selling a home, the beginning of the process is exciting and full of promise. Possibilities for the future abound.
Filled with anticipation, home buyers just KNOW the right home is out there waiting for them, and home sellers just KNOW the right home buyer is going to walk through their door at any minute to make an offer.
Home buyers can envision the type of home they want, the neighborhood they want to live in, the amenities they want their community to offer, the schools they want their kids to go to. And their visions and dreams of this life they imagine drive their search for the perfect house.
Home sellers have dreams of their own. Visions of life in a new city, at a new job, in a different life circumstance, etc. have them yearning for the right home buyer to come along to fall in love with their home the way they did when they purchased it.
Whether buying or selling a home, both home buyers and home sellers are anxious to start a new phase of their life’s journey.
The real fun begins when home buyers find a home that they love and decide to make an offer.
You’d think it would be straightforward enough. But often it isn’t.
Because in the heat of negotiations, home buyers and home sellers often lose track of their visions and end goals and become mired instead in a battle over who will have the last word in the offer/counteroffer process.
Who gets to keep the refrigerator? Who gets to keep the washer and dryer? Who’s going to relinquish control of the garden gnomes? Who is going to offer $5000 more to make the deal work? Who is going to accept $5000 less?
Negotiations are a necessary part of a real estate deal, designed to help both parties come to a meeting of the minds.
They are not about humiliating the other party into submission.
They are not about who gets to pee on the tree last.
What is your dream? What is your end goal?
What’s more important to you – The house? Or the last word?
