Negotiating the price of your property
From Lawpack's 'Sell your own Home Kit'

Once you have hooked a buyer of your property, you may have to steel yourself for some tough and nail-bitingly tense negotiations before you arrive at a price you are happy to accept.

Unless there is a lot of competition for properties, your buyer is likely to open the negotiations by offering a low price. For example, you reckon your property is worth £325,000. You put it on the market at £350,000, hoping to attract offers of between £320,000 and £330,000. What you get is an offer of £310,000.

The buyer seems keen, but how do you nudge him towards the figure you want? The answer is to keep your nerve and launch a subtle psychological battle of wits. Your buyer knows that the asking price of £350,000 is more than the house is worth. You, the seller, know that it is worth more than the £310,000 s/he has offered. Now is the time to make sure your buyer knows just how desirable your property is. You must get over the message that if s/he does not move quickly, the property is likely to be snapped up by other buyers.

A good technique is to empathise with your buyer. Tell him/here you would love to see him/her living in your house and it would break your heart to sell to anyone else, but sadly you cannot accept his/her offer and you cannot wait for ever.

Create tension and suspense. One technique is to remain incommunicado for a couple of days. Nervous buyers will suspect that you have gone cold on them and may be discussing an offer from another buyer. Try sweetening the pill with an offer to throw in the curtains for free or leave a particular piece of furniture which your buyer has said s/he likes, if s/he can only see his way to increasing his offer to, say, £330,000. S/he then comes back with an offer of, say, £315,000, and you finally settle on £325,000 and everyone is satisfied.

Your buyer thinks s/he has got a bargain, and you have got an offer in line with what you think your property is worth.

Once you have accepted an offer it is a good idea to keep in close contact with your buyer's estate agent to make sure that his/her own property sale is going through smoothly and to head off any potential problems at an early stage.


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