Tricky negotiations and how you handled them

[Andrew D.]

I recently bought a property to live in and went through negotiations, escrow, and closing for the first time, I learned a lot from the process. When we offered on the house we offered the day the house was listed, 10pm on Friday. The offer lasted until 12pm the next day. The sellers countered my asking for 1k more when we had already offered their asking price. We found out they were having an open house Sunday and that they had no other offers and wanted a bidding war to happen after the open house. Good homes are selling very quick, day 1, in our location. We didn't want to get stuck in a bidding war!

We decided to decline the offer and reinstate it until Sunday, right before the open house started. We declined and waited on reinstating the offer to make them sweat it out. They end up calling at 10pm Saturday night asking for our original offer.

Looking back, I wish that we had offered under asking. I've read that sellers hate accepting the first offer without countering. They feel like they can do better so they like to counter. In our case, we offered asking price but with 3% of the home value in closing costs so it wasn't exactly the asking price.

Now it's time for me to start looking for my first investment property and I need to learn to negotiate. What tricky negotiations have you encountered and how did you handle them? Do you wish that you had handled it differently?