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Ready Set Sold with Bryan Vogt #20-04: Mayor of Belleville Ill, Mark Eckert: The #1 question to ask an agent about their negotiating skills!

October 7, 2017


Bryan Vogt: Hey, welcome back to Ready, Set, Sold. I am your host, Bryan Vogt. What we’re talking about today is Belleville Illinois and you just listened to the Mayor of Belleville. One of the things about the Mayor that I truly respect about him is, you may disagree, you may not agree with what he does, but I haven’t found anybody that doesn’t understand the love that he has for the city of Belleville and the dedication. Like I say, you don’t always have to agree with people, but the Mayor of Belleville is truly amazing in not only his knowledge, but also in his love for the city. I think that’s why we’ve had success that they’ve had. It’s a large part of it.
With that, now we’re moving back into contract negotiations and the idea of having a win-win situation and why that’s so important. We kind of left you in the first segment talking about why it’s so important to have a win-win. Understanding is that it can be, on occasion, it can be a situation of money, so that there may be negotiations back and forth. Maybe a couple of things, maybe once or twice usually isn’t that long, as far as pricing goes between a buyer and seller.
Purchasing a win-win can happen in various ways. Win-wins can be … and we just had this happen, we know of a seller that put their house on the market, happened to be a high end house, buyers walked in, absolutely loved it, offered exactly what the seller was wanting. Win-win. The seller, in fairness, he was a seller of ours, but basically,I gave them the book, kind of went through it.
Made their decision on where they wanted to put the pricing that’s always important. They picked a price for their location, what they were trying to accomplish. We gave them a little consulting with that and they put it on the market. In a very, very short period, buyer walked in and said, “Man, I love what you’re doing.” Again, that’s a win-win situation, doesn’t always have to be pricing.
But what it can also be is can be is closing dates. Look, there’s no two situations … I’ve been doing this for a long time … there’s no two negotiations that work the same. People are looking for a little bit differently. It could be just a change in the closing date. The standard is 30 days, but maybe it’s a little bit longer, maybe, if possible, a little bit shorter. That’s important to understand.
Closing dates can be very important to buyers and they can be very important to sellers. So, kind of give you some examples when we’re talking about closing dates. That they agreed on pricing, that was not the issue. But the seller was looking to build a house and they started the process, but they wanted to try to extend the closing out to two months instead of the traditional 30 days. The buyers looked at it, it just happened to work out that situation, that they didn’t really need to be in that home anytime sooner than the 60 days. So that was just a very simple fix.
Even though closing dates are 30 days and that’s very normal and that’s very traditional, it doesn’t mean that, again, your agent, you as a seller, potentially the buyer, can’t work out what’s the best solution to an issue. Doesn’t always mean it’s going to work out, but at least you can have a conversation. Many times, there’s a lot of give and take on closing dates and closing times.
I will say when we talked about win, there isn’t that win-win situation whether you as the seller or the buyer, that creates a lot of issues. It creates a lot of problems. To give you an example, just heard a story about a buyer that was just hammering the seller. Just hammering them on price, hammering them on just about everything, the home inspection, just looking to get every, every small, little honeydo thing done.
Whether that’s good or bad, that’s up to them, but it was just one thing after another. Suddenly, the buyer realized that the process was going very smoothly and they could possibly get in sooner into the house. They were planning on closing on the fifth of a particular month and they found that they could get on the 29th. Since they were renting, that would be a big plus for them, save them $1000, $1500. Well guess what? They asked the sellers and the seller said, “No.” All those things that they’d put in and things they’d made the sellers go through, they stuck to the date and they had to pay an additional $1500 just by not trying to work with people a little bit better and not having that hammer down.
There maybe situations where it makes sense, but rarely does that ever happen. It’s important to know that and as I said before, most buyers and sellers get that. I’m really talking to a small group of people here, but I think it’s important for even that small group of people to know that what works best because ultimately, that’s what you’re looking for. You are having a win-win situation where the buyer gets what they want and the seller also gets to move what they want and get on with their lives where they’re moving to their next adventure. That becomes so, so important.
One thing I also wanted to bring up in this segment too though is, is one of the great questions you can ask when you’re interviewing an agent and that is, what is their negotiating style? Now, first off, hopefully they’re going to say a win-win. Now if they don’t say anything, that could be a concern because negotiations are part of what we do in real estate. If they don’t have a strategy, they don’t have a certain outcome they’re looking for, that could be a concern, that might be someone that might be weak in negotiations.
That may be somebody you don’t want to use. But hopefully they’re doing it win-win. What you want to stay away from though is … and this happens on occasion, not very often, but on occasion … you get the situation where you have the agent that says, “I’m going to use a scorch earth policy. I’m going get you every dime, every nickel, every penny. I’m going to just trounce any buyer or any buyer’s agent that doesn’t give you exactly what you want. I will get this somehow because it’s me.” It sounds good and many times sellers that have taken that approach think that’s a great idea, initially.
But many times, those agents end the business just a little side, a little secret maybe to tell the listeners. Those agents tend to kill more deals than they make, just because having that scorch earth policy. Remember this is a win-win situation, buyer wants to buy your home, they want to figure out a way to make this work. If you go in with only I win and you lose, you might be surprised how many times that deals fall away.
So if you have that agent that has that … unless that’s what you want, and that’s okay, it’s your house, your decision … you might want to think twice about that. You might want to interview another agent or two just making sure that they have your best interests in mind and that this is going to be a smooth transaction. That’s so, so important.
And really, isn’t that what everybody wants? You want to get top dollar, you want to have a fast sale, but you want to have an enjoyable experience. You don’t want to be like people we’ve heard in the past saying, “I sold my house, but I don’t ever want to do that again.” Hey, don’t go away, we’ll be talking about our $5000 tip of the week and you do not want to miss it. Be back in a few.

Be back in a few.
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