All Forum Posts by: Wade Sikkink

@Steve Vaughan The "what if" questions are great.  That's a persuasion technique called "thinking past the sale"  Get the other party to think about what things will be like after the sale and it mentally moves them to a place where the sale has already occurred thereby making it an easier decision to accept the sale.  Nice!

Great examples!  Thanks everyone for getting this thread back on track.  Let's hear some more great stories!

Well this thread went off the rails.  I was hoping to hear some cool negotiating stories but instead seemed to attract a troll.  My apologies to everyone.

Well @Richard C. let's just suffice it to say that you consider negotiating to be unethical and not disclosing your positions to be lying.  You must really have it in for wholesalers that put a house under contract that they have no intention of buying themselves.

Best of luck to you.

Higher earnest money is a great example @Mike H.  In the end it costs you nothing but helps address a concern for the seller.

I never said the banker limited our offer.  I simply mentioned that we talked with our banker.  The seller drew their own conclusions.  I had, in fact, talked with one of the bankers we use to make sure he would be on board with this deal.

Sometimes people struggle with how to employ negotiating tactics that they read about in real world situations.  The BP community has probably collectively negotiated more real estate deals than any other group in the history of time.  We should share some of the techniques we've used and how things turned out so that others can learn by seeing some real world examples.  I'll start.

We bought a SFR a couple months ago and I used a couple specific techniques in the negotiation. Higher authority and specific number. Here's how it went. After opening the negotiation the seller countered a number to us. When we countered I used this specific language:

"We've talked with our banker about the repairs we're going to need to make and the most we can offer is $71,800.  We're buying this house as an investment and that's the best we can do.  We'll take it as is.  You can stop painting and any other work you're doing."

By invoking the higher authority of the banker we made it seem like it's out of our hands.  Most people are constrained by what a bank is willing to lend them, so this use of a higher authority figure will be very familiar to most people.

By using a very specific offer number of $71,800 it seems like we've really done a lot of working figuring out what it's going to take to make this deal work.  In reality the number was arbitrary, but within the bounds of what I was willing to accept on this deal.

The combination of these techniques leaves the impression that we've done a lot of work on getting to this point and this is it.  It's a nuanced way of saying "take it or leave it" without actually using those words.  The seller accepted our offer.

Now your turn.  Share some examples of negotiating techniques you've used in the real world and how they turned out.

Don't kid yourself about "supporting BP"  They make plenty off the advertising they sell.  Maybe in the early days that wasn't the case, but with the traffic they have now, they will have no problem keeping the lights on.

Now if by paying for a Pro membership they removed all advertising for me, that might be something I would consider.  However, I doubt they would entertain that because my page views are worth far more as advertising traffic than the Pro membership fee.

Ok, I'll go the other way here.  Not worth it in my opinion.  I have my own analysis tools I've built and refined over the years, so I don't use those.  The Pro only forum rarely has anything useful in it and I own enough units that I don't need the Pro tag to have credibility.  I'm always surprised to see people with a Pro tag posting that they are newbies and need advice on how to get started.  So what is it exactly that makes you a Pro?

I won't be renewing mine when it expires and I think it's pretty greedy that they are raising the price on something that has so little value.

That's my $0.02.

Depends on what your goal is.  If your goal is cash flow then yes, walk away.  Don't fall in love with a property.  Always let the numbers guide you.

That being said, if this is an appreciation opportunity and you expect the house to go up significantly in value then maybe the cash flow doesn't matter.  If you can do the minor cosmetic repairs and flip it for $200k, then who cares that it doesn't cash flow.

Again, know what your strategy is and let the numbers guide your decisions.  If you are looking to build a portfolio of cash flowing buy and holds, then this one probably won't work and you need to keep looking.

Good luck.