There’s a very strong element of thinking among buyers in this market that really is a hold over from the last five years…but in my opinion is no longer relevant. That element is the strong desire to negotiate the best possible deal. For some folks it really is the most important thing. In answer to the question, what’s important? these folks deep down think it’s the deal.

What I mean by that is that, for some buyers, the deal is the most important thing. Not the house/townhouse/condo…it’s the deal. It’s sort of funny to me that in the face of 10 offers or more on a property somebody will inevitably want to negotiate downward. I hear frequently questions like:

“Can we ask the seller to pay for our closing costs?”

“Do you think we can get the seller to fix all those things on the pest report?”

“How can we get the seller to fix the foundation?”

As I see it in markets like this one, heck in ANY market, the property is the most important thing. That’s the bottom line. If the place is in a good location, has the features you want and is in reasonably good shape,then negotiating over relatively small amounts of money is silly. Yet many folks feel bad if they don’t get a concession out of a seller. So many of the offers I’m seeing right now have no contingencies, have large down payments and are way over the asking price. The actual definition of “deal” in these cases is whether or not we got the place and is it in a location that is likely to appreciate well.

The irony is that making the deal top priority is ultimately a desire to save money. After wasting months of attempting to negotiate these relatively small amounts of money and losing homes in competition…the prices of these homes goes up. By the time it becomes apparent that the home is the most important thing, you’ve lost more money than you had been trying to negotiate originally in market appreciation. I can’t even tell you how many times I’ve seen that…and I’ve seen people who have actually been completely priced out of this area.