The only way I found to get my negotication done correctly was to take more time before making a counter offer (which I didn’t do while selling, but did while buying… this will be discussed in another post ).

the more time you take, the less emotive you become…

The guy is apparently a notoriously hard bargainer, according to the realtor who has dealt with them before. The initial listing is quite a bit above market price. I offered what I thought was a good value offer, 250K below asking.

He countered with a reduction of 50K. I did not re-counter, instead I asked the realtor to get his reasons. He said “That’s the market price.” and wanted me to recounter. But I didn’t re-counter, I just justified my initial offer by telling him some of the key assumptions from my valuation model and asked him where I went wrong in valuing his property. We’ll see where he goes. This is a great learning experience for me because, like you, I suck at negotiating when things are near and dear to my heart.

On thing I’ve found is that there is hardly ever an offer that you can’t pass up. I’ve gotten more than realtors from the other side by simply asking for more. When you get down to the end, they are so committed that you can ask for $5K more. Percentage-wise it is not much so the other side will likely say yes, but it is the easiest $5K you ever made in your life.