We are going to continue our five-part series on real estate negotiations. Here’s part number two.
Featuring:
Bob Nelson, Eugene real estate investment broker
Marcia Edwards, Eugene residential real estate broker
Marcia Edwards: Talking to sellers these days, they’re hoping that the prices are still going up in an aggressive rate and so they’ll say, “Hey, let’s put it 40,000 above and let’s just go fishing up there and see if we can find someone that I’ll come toward us and if they don’t they can just offer less.”
Bob Nelson: Well, and that’s an interesting concept and I guess if you had plenty of time and you weren’t concerned with the appearance of an over-shopped asset, gosh, what’s the term? I can’t remember exactly what it is.
Marcia Edwards: Shopworn.
Bob Nelson: Shopworn.
Marcia Edwards: All right, look at that, this is like jeopardy or something. Yeah.
Bob Nelson: That takes two of us, except one of us has a brand. Shopworn concept, if it’s been there for a while and everybody has seen it, well, obviously it’s a failed foundation or it’s a train wreck of some short, no sense of me even taking a look. When in fact, they priced it poorly and put themselves in a position where this was starting to happen.
Marcia Edwards: I just had that conversation this morning with some buyers I’m just starting to work with. We look at the trends and we see if there’s an exception to the trends, 23 days in the market in the city of Eugene is the average days on market before you procure a buyer. So if you’ve gone fishing and you’re now 50 to 60 days in the market, I’m going to take that as a registration of something was missing, we’re missing the mark somewhere as a seller, and I don’t have a buyer to buy as a fool, so it does compromise your negotiating position.
Bob Nelson: Well, and it’s interesting because you will also mentally become more desperate with, “Oh, my gosh, my game plan has failed. Now what do I do?” And you become a little more desperate in your position and a person who is desperate in the negotiation process, is one who is allowing time to work against them. They know that they’ve made a mistake and now they’re trying to make up ground and you become more vulnerable to the person on the other side of the table.
Marcia Edwards: And if you’re chasing the market, it feels that way even more so this season, fourth quarter, you’re starting to wonder what’s going to happen next.
Bob Nelson: Exactly.
Marcia Edwards: So you’ve really got to be in tune to that. It is okay if you came out of the gate in the wrong position. Reposition now, there’s no reason to wait. You can definitely say, “No,” to low ball offers. If you’re saying, “Hey, 500,000 is what we’ll sell this for,” and you get one at 480, you can say, “No.” So don’t feel like you’ve lost your power there.
Bob Nelson: Exactly. Now it’s also interesting, keep this concept very firmly in mind, if you are outfitting something for sale and you get no offers, that suggests what? And assuming it’s been fully marketed, the market is voting no daily, no, they’re rejecting your position.
Join Eugene, Oregon, real estate experts: Bob Nelson, Real Estate Investment Broker with Pacwest Real Estate Investments, and Marcia Edwards, Residential Real Estate Broker with Windermere Real Estate, daily at 5:30pm on KPNW for the “Real Estate Today” radio show.
Leave a Reply