What Do You Negotiate When a Lender’s Appraiser Says “No!”? I had a neighbor who, after her husband’s death, decided she wanted to sell a vacation home that she and her husband had owned. She talked to a few brokers, got a feel for the market, and put it up for sale for $550,000. (It … Read more
How Do You Keep Personal Property Out of the Deal? There’s another perspective here, and that’s the view of the seller. Thus far we’ve been seeing how a buyer can get a seller to throw in a piece of personal property. But how does a seller keep a buyer from demanding this? The answer is … Read more
How to Bargain for Personal Property: How Do You Negotiate to Get Personal Property Included in the Deal? As a buyer, you may fall in love with a piece of personal property just as Rita and Peter did in our example. It could be a beautiful, bell shaped glass chandelier in the dining room. Maybe … Read more
How to Bargain for Personal Property: What Is Personal Property? It’s important to understand the technical distinction between real and personal property. Real properly refers to the land and anything attached to the land, including the house, fences, separate garage, sheds, and so forth. Personal property generally refers to anything that you can take with … Read more
How to Bargain for Personal Property Often buyer and seller will negotiate over more than just the house itself. At stake may be a dining room chandelier, a refrigerator or stove, a washer and dryer. Even children’s outdoors swings may be up for grabs. I recently sold a home in which I had put an … Read more
Negotiating with a Builder: Mortgage Buy Downs In the days of higher interest rates (as happens periodically), the reason that builders can’t sell their homes is that people can’t qualify for mortgages. As an inducement to purchase, therefore, some times builders will be willing to negotiate a buy down. In a buy down, the builder … Read more
Negotiating with a Builder: What You Can Negotiate With a builder you can negotiate price, terms, options, and extras. Keep in mind, however, that often an individual owner on a resale has more flexibility than a builder. An owner may have been in the house for years and built up a considerable equity. If you … Read more
Negotiating with a Builder: Getting Negotiations Started For most people, perhaps the hardest part of negotiating with a builder is getting the process started. Remember, the builder knows what you have in mind and, in most cases, has taken care to see that you are discouraged from negotiating. Typically there are “set prices” for the … Read more
Negotiating without an Agent: When Would You Be Better Off Negotiating Directly? A lot depends on whom the agent represents. Does he or she represent you or the other party? If the agent represents the seller, then he or she cannot fully represent the buyer and vice versa. Thus, in most states today we have … Read more
Negotiating without an Agent: What If the Agent Throws Up a Roadblock? If you’re a buyer, your agent may say that you can’t present the offer directly to the seller and that the seller has specified that he or she wants to deal only with a broker. (The seller’s agent may make the same appeal … Read more
