The Not-So-Delicate Art of Negotiation, Part II

After we reached the summit of Mt. Paperwork, the moment arrived to discuss the contours of our offer. Time at last to cut past the gristle and get right down to the bone. Dollars and cents. How much to offer? How hard to press? We were shoving out of the kiddie pool and into the deep end. Katie, ever-sympathetic to the sellers-- perfect strangers as far as I was concerned, and, at this stage, our nemesis-- wanted to be considerate of their needs and feelings. They were asking for the same price as the "almost perfect, one-that-got-away" house from our first night on the market. Entirely too high in my estimation. By her own admission, Katie was too invested in the idea of "fairness" and "not offending the sellers with an offer so low that they wouldn't want to deal with us in future." Realizing, perhaps, that this line of thought was putting us in a bargaining position of weakness, Katie conferred negotiation responsibility to me and stepped back into the role consultant. Tag team. I was entering the arena for the first time in the house-hunting process, and I had psyched myself up to the point of having my aggressive hackles fully raised.

Mike: "Ok. What are you guys thinking for your offer."
Jeff [Looking at Katie, nodding]: "Well, Mike, to be honest, I'm thinking we really should begin with a lowball number. The place is charming, and we really like it, but it's nowhere near as nice, or move-in-ready, as almost perfect, one-that-got-away. They are crazy if they think they are going to get that kind of money. I think we want go in for a good 15 to 20 percent less than their asking price, which, I think is defensible because that's pretty much exactly what it's going to cost us to get their house close to our standards. It needs a full bathroom renovation at the very least, and probably lots of other repairs as well. Does that make sense? Are we being reasonable? How about X dollars?"
Mike [Looking an ashen-faced Katie]: "Well... yes. That sounds reasonable to me. You know what you want. I agree that that's a good way to play it. I'll make the call."

Then, before making the call, Mike did something that we did not expect. He offered a strategy for pressing the issue with the sellers by affixing onto our offer a very short response window:

"Let's give them 24 hours to accept, reject, or counter the offer, and then make it null and void. I think they want to jump, but let's not give them time to try and attract competing bids or other outside interest in the place."

A new level of aggressiveness.

In the fullness of time during our meeting with Mike, it emerged that the sellers were having an open house the next day (a Saturday), which they hoped would drum up additional business for the listing. This news threw a wrench into our mental works. What if a new potential buyer swooped in and out-bid us? Should we up the ante preemptively? After a frantic, whispered conversation together Katie and I resolved in the negative. If it was not meant to be, it was not meant to be; we were under no circumstances prepared to start bidding against ourselves. We stood pat, but that didn't mean we weren't anxious about the open house, or the dragging by of the next 24 windows. In fact, we decided to take drastic, and (for us) dramatic action...

Next Up: Katie describes our cloak and dagger misadventure!