What Not to Do When Negotiating – Part 3

This is the final part of this article but it is not the end of the mistakes I have made negotiating with sellers through the years. I will continue to provide more negotiating ideas for every serious investor who realizes that negotiating directly with the seller is where the most money will be made.

8. Being Inflexible – can you imagine a real estate genius like me passing on a deal just because the sellers and I were $500 apart on the price? Even at the higher price it was still a good deal for me but my pride and ego wouldn’t let me give in and do the deal because I wanted the deal to go my way and the sellers wanted the deal to go their way. I can’t believe I was that immature that I let a beautiful asset like that house slip away over $500. I have learned over the years, there is no place in this business for your pride or your ego. If you have negotiated a good deal get the deal closed and enjoy the benefits that property will give you and your family.

9. Saying Offensive Things to the Sellers – can you imagine ME saying something offensive to sellers? I wasn’t trying to be offensive I just didn’t know any better. What I’m talking about is something I have done several times and it was definitely a deal breaker. When I would go to look at a property of course I was there to structure the best deal for my family and I hoped it would work for the sellers also. As we would start to discuss the property I thought I was supposed to run the property down to diminish the value of the property so I could get a better price or terms from the sellers. I would say things like, the landscaping on this house looks terrible, the yard is a mess is there any reason you haven’t taken better care of your property? Your house is in really bad shape, it has a terrible floor plan, the kitchen is a real mess and that bathroom needs thousands of dollars to fix it. Quite frankly your house is a mess and it’s going to cost me a small fortune to fix it so it is rentable or saleable.

   DON’T DO WHAT I DID! My friend Peter Fortunato told me to always say to the sellers of a nicer house… “Why would you sell a lovely house like this?” If it was a property in poorer condition say to the sellers, “why are you selling your house”? These are much better words to use that won’t insult the sellers and be a deal killer. I don’t remember who told me to insult the sellers and say their property was a dump and a mess trying to get a better price but one thing I can tell you, if you do that you will be as big of a fool as I was and lose more deals than you buy. This is not a good idea!

10. Arguing with the Sellers – through the years of my investing career when I was negotiating with the sellers I would disagree with them about such things as the cost to rehab the property if I were to buy it. Because I was in the construction business and a licensed contractor who had done many rehab projects I thought I knew more about what it would cost to repair their property than they did, and I was probably right but I wasn’t too smart how I went about explaining my thoughts. As I alienated myself from many sellers because of my opinions I learned to ask the sellers if they have had a licensed contractor give them a price of what it will cost to completely fix their property to be ready to sell at a full market price. Once I started doing this I learned that if I could get the number the licensed contractor gave them I could use that number to negotiate the price I was willing to pay the sellers. I learned that arguing with some sellers about anything can be a deal killer.

I have only listed ten different issues I had to learn not to do if I wanted to buy the sellers houses. Don’t get me wrong, I bought a lot of houses through the years, but if I had used better negotiating skills maybe I could have bought many more houses. I shutter to think of how much money I have lost over the past 35 years because of my inexperience in the beginning to my ego fueled ignorance through the years.

This is why I decided to write my new course “Negotiating Techniques and Secrets of the Master Real Estate Investors” you can find at www.LarryHarbolt.com. With the information in this course you will quickly be a negotiating expert and quickly be able to structure deals your competition won’t be able to do. This will be a huge start for everyone who wants to learn from my many mistakes and how I turned those mistakes into successes everyone can use to help them build real estate wealth faster and easier.

Happy Investing

Larry