On the flip side, I prefer to find the deal first, and make the buyers chase me for the awesome 'needle in the haystack' deal I've grinded it out to find and negotiate.

You don't contact the other party until you have some definite Leverage that you can negotiate.

A good Realtor will expose it to everybody in the market with MLS listing and a solid marketing plan.Either way, unless Mom is a trained negotiator, she's going to be up against one who brings the buyer. 

Can somebody PLEASE give me tips how you negotiate a homeowner down? 

I have a duplex, a triplex and currently negotiating on a fourplex.  

If you can negotiate less, good for you, but remember you get what you pay for! 

During this time run a title preliminary report to see if there arw any liens or judgments ties to the property, get pay off and reinstatement quotes so you can asses the deal and see what you are working with before negotiating a deal.

This is going to be an interesting one to negotiate! 

You will be surprised with all the different offers you get and the degree to which they will negotiate if you make it clear you are looking for the best terms.Also for an older building like that be extremely conservative with the expense projections.

Jerome Ave rezoning was just approved a month ago or so and word has it the Kingsbridge Armory renovation is about to be approved as well. 2 familys are great bc the bronx still have relatively low prices compared to the rest of NYC but rents are still HIGH so if you have a rented unit....the monthly mortgage burden is not that bad. we bought our house for 390k 3 years ago and in total we needed about 17k cash from offer to closing. the vast majority of that was just the 3.5 down payment. i negotiated to have the seller pay our closing costs and again no real estate agents were used. best of luck in your search.