How Much of a Deal Do Home Buyers Need to Get?

Ever wonder how much of a deal do home buyers need to get? What is the walking away number? The number that says nobody wants to sell and evidently nobody wants to buy so let’s just forget about the whole thing? If it’s less than one half of a percent, I say everybody in that transaction needs their heads examined. Somebody must be focusing on the wrong things.

When I see some demands from buyers, it doesn’t make sense. For that sake of clarity, I am not talking about any transactions I am personally involved in. Because I’d probably tear out my hair and go screaming into the night if I were. But say, for example, that a home was priced at $400K. And the buyer’s agent, through a series of negotiations and multiple counter offers, gets the seller to agree to a price of $360K.

Any normal, rational person would jump at that. But not the buyer. This particular buyer said no, it’s not low enough. The seller needs to go to $358K. So the parties are $2,000 apart. When the buyer says no . . .  this is no longer about buying a house. This is about the game.

Naturally, the easiest solution is for the agents to work out an agreement amongst themselves to either reduce their fees or reduce other costs in the transaction. Or add an unexpected benefit. For the record, it is against the Realtor Code of Ethics for a listing agent to ask a buyer’s agent to reduce the commission just to make the transaction work. Further, why should either of the agents suffer this tragedy and take a loss in income?

Some agents will do it, though, just to stop the standoff and push it through. Others will not. That’s because figuring out how much of a deal do home buyers need to get is not always about the money. It’s about the winning. You can find a way to let the buyer win through some other type of negotiation.  Maybe it’s throwing in an extra nicety as icing on the cake.

I could give you more ideas of what to offer when you’re stuck on how much of a deal do home buyers need to get if I knew more specifics of the transaction. A bargaining table like this type of situation that died mid-stream says there is something else wrong. It’s no longer about the money. And it’s certainly NOT about buying a home.

You’re not gonna like my next sentence but I need to write it. It’s about who can be the bigger asshole.