Bryan Vogt: Hey, welcome back everyone. Thanks so much for joining us this Saturday. You’re listening to Ready Set Sold. I’m your host Bryan Vogt. What we left you with the last segment was is what should you be expecting from your agent as far as negotiations go? Now I have to be honest with you. Some of this should be up front before you signed on the dotted line, before you … Or electronic signatures, which also happens too, on listings now.
Either way, hopefully you’ve had a conversation. It’s a simple question. I put it in the book. What is your negotiating style? How do you negotiate? Now if the agent tells you they don’t really have one, that’s not a good thing. I think most sellers know negotiation’s pretty big on the checklist of what you’re hiring a realtor for.
Number two, depending on what they tell you, here’s some insight on maybe what you could possibly be looking for down the road. Now one of the things that you might want to stay away from is the person who says that, “Whatever it takes. I will just press it down and crush these people. We will get exactly every dime that you want. Every penny and every nickel and I don’t care what it takes.” That sounds good. That really sounds good. That might sound even good to you as a seller. I will tell you from past experience, those types of agents that use that technique, usually lose more deals than they make.
I’m not exaggerating. What you’re really looking for is a win-win situation. That’s what most sellers want; that’s what most buyers want. Now win-win could be very simply that you’ve put your house on the market for a certain price. The buyer agrees with you. You get full-price offer, it’s a win-win. Buyers and sellers both agree. Got a great house. Got top-dollar pricing. You’ve got a deal. So that’s when we talk about win-win because if you don’t have a win-win, remember there’s two sides to this coin. If your agent is, again, raising cane, saying it’s got to be this, it’s got to be that, and you’ve got to be this way. Too many times we’ve seen those agents take over or hijack negotiations.
One particular situation, these people that had to sell their home. There was a situation, they just needed to get out. It was a $5,000 difference. It was well within the top-dollar range and even they agreed with it. I think the house was in O’Fallon. I think it was listed for $210,000. The offer came in at $200,000. The agent jumped in because the seller says, “Man, we got to go. This is good. This will work.” The agent jumped in and said, “You can’t do that. You just can’t do that. You have to negotiate.” Said, “You have to negotiate and you make it $205,000. Make it $205,000.” The sellers were nervous and said, “You sure?” “Oh, absolutely.” Came back at $205,000. Buyers walked. Next time they got an offer, three months later.
We don’t know when the next offer’s going to be in and most sellers know that. That you want to take every offer on its merits and try to make them work. Where you have that agent that wants to take over those negotiations, be careful. Be very, very careful. So when you hear that strong suit, things like that can happen. People loose deals that way. Also, sometimes those agents, and this is truth, they will want you to take offers that maybe aren’t so good because they are what we call “numbers agents.” They base everything on numbers and part of their marketing strategy is how fast they’re selling houses. I know it sounds crazy, but it’s true.
There’s not that many of them but there’s a few of them out there that are more worried about getting you closer to the price of asking price. Not so much for you, but that their numbers will be good for marketing to other people. They can brag on the percentage of how close they get to the sale. Or they can brag about how fast the closing gig is. They’d be able to close the house quicker. In that situation, maybe the deal isn’t that great. But they’ll sacrifice your money to get you to get them a quick closing date, and keep their numbers in order, and they can keep on marketing that way. Crazy as is sounds, it’s true.
Also, if they don’t have a negotiating style, that’s a concern because that’s usually going to be when the offer comes in, seller says, “What should I do?” The agent says, “I don’t know. I don’t know. What do you want to do?” “I don’t know. It’s your house.” Well, can you give me some direction?” “Well, I don’t know.” After a few “I don’t knows,” that can be a very frustrating thing for your seller. That’s not exactly what you hired that person to do. Or you can have the other situation. The offer comes in and it’s panic city.
The agent’s like, “You don’t have to take this deal. You have to take it. What are you doing? Oh my God, if you don’t take this deal, life as we know it is going to end. And oh my God, sign on the dotted line. Let’s get this thing taken care of. Let’s get it done.” That’s not really the approach you’re looking for either.
The last approach maybe is the best approach. Is the approach that most top agents use and what you should be looking for. As I said before is a win-win situation. Let’s talk about the situation. What’s going on? Understanding that in any deal the buyer, and sometimes the seller, but the buyer can walk away. They put an offer on. We had just this happen not too long ago. A house went on the market. The first day buyer offered top dollar. The seller wanted more. That’s fine. They countered back. The buyer walked. It was 30 days before they got another offer that they accepted.
It doesn’t happen very often but you, as a seller, need to know that it can happen. So when you put in that counter offer, always know if you’re okay with that, that’s fine. But again, your agent should be informational. Are they seeing things? For example, a $200,000, an offer comes at $190,000. Many times a buyer’s trying to split the difference. That’s very common. Buyers and sellers split the difference quite often. That could be $195,000 then. It just depends on what you’re looking for. If you’re in the top price range, in the top-dollar range, where you’re at with that. So many factors. How long has your house been on the market? First offer in three months. You and your agent might be talking about this a lot more serious than an offer that comes in the first three days. It doesn’t mean it doesn’t have the same consequences, but again, the situation changes.
I told you at the start of this program, it’s situational. There’s so many other factors that go into it. Your agent has to be aware of that and has to have a conversation with you, and to help guide you, to help consult with you. Give you that information that you can make your decision because, ultimately, and I think sellers know this, and buyers too on the other side. This is your house. This affects you. This has the most biggest impact on you. You want to make sure that you’ve gotten the information you need to make the best decisions possible. Again, we’ve talked about before, about having that top-dollar range. Once you have that, that’s a good sign. If you hit that top-dollar range, you know you’ve hit top dollar. If you want to improve it, that’s up to you. That becomes … The circumstances dictate that.
Hey, I’ve got more information than you can imagine in this book. It’s not just about negotiations. It’s about other things about selling your home. Go right now, go to readysetsold.org. Get your free copy. Free copy. It’ll be sent, mailed directly to your doorstep. No strings, nothing. If you’re 12 months out, if you’re 24 months out, if you’re next month out. Either way, get the book, readysetsold.org, not .com.
