Negotiating as a buyer
What there is to negotiate besides price, and when your leverage is actually highest.
4 minute read
Negotiation happens twice: on the offer, and again after the inspection. The second one is usually where more is available, and it is the one people are least prepared for.
Work out what the seller wants
Sometimes price. Often speed, certainty, or a particular closing date because they are buying somewhere else.
A seller who needs to be out by a date will take a lower offer that meets it. Ask the listing agent what matters to them; they will often say.
Things to negotiate besides price
A contribution towards your closing costs. Repairs, or a credit instead of repairs. What stays with the house. The closing date. A rent-back if the seller needs time.
A closing cost contribution is often easier for a seller to accept than a price reduction, because it leaves the headline number intact.
After the inspection
Your leverage is highest here, because the seller now knows a withdrawal means going back to market and disclosing what you found.
Ask for what matters - safety, structure, systems - and let the cosmetic items go. A list of thirty items reads as bad faith and gets a worse response than a list of three.
A credit is frequently better than a repair. You choose who does the work and to what standard, rather than getting the cheapest job that satisfies the contract.
When not to push
If you have already got a good price in a market with other buyers, squeezing further can lose you the house. Decide in advance what you are willing to walk away over, and separate that from what merely annoys you.
The short version
- Find out what the seller actually wants. It is often not price.
- Post-inspection is where your leverage is highest.
- Ask for few things that matter, not many that do not.
This is general information, not advice about your situation. Zoila Moscoso can tell you what applies to you.
Ask about your situationRead next
The inspection, and what to do with what it finds
What an inspector does, what they cannot see, and how to read a report without panicking.
Making an offer, and what is in it besides the price
Contingencies, earnest money and the terms that decide whether your offer wins.
Telling a buyer market from a seller market
The signals that tell you which one you are in, and what changes about how you offer.