Negotiating Off-Market Deals

[Dan Barman]

Hi BP Community!

Working with a RE Agent to find interested sellers of small muliti-fams in a competitive and "hot" market in the New York Hudson Valley; the agent is both working as the RE agent and as a 50/50 partner/investor on the deal. 

After doing some mailings we recently heard back from an owner of 7 properties who is "casually interested" in selling one or more of them. This is our 1st deal of this type and we're wondering what can we offer this potential seller to entice him to keep the property off market? What "upside" do we have to offer other than saving him the time of listing/showing the property to find a buyer? Since the market in this location is hot for sellers, we think he could drive the price up by listing it on the MLS; what can we offer him to not do that and sell the property to us off-market, more quickly and at an overall lower price?

Any advice that can help us find our leverage in a potential off-market deal would be wonderful. Also, any RE agents out there who have worked on these types of deals; what can my agent/partner offer to help bring his closing costs down? She's unclear on what her options might be to lower/eliminate her fee or what else she might be able to do to help sweeten our offer.

Thanks everyone!

-Dan