THE DIFFERENCE BETWEEN HIGH AND HIGHEST
A high price, even one that delights sellers, may not be the highest price. No matter how high a price appears to be, the question remains: “Is it the highest price?” If more agents asked this question, more sellers would receive higher prices.
If a seller wants $500,000 and the agent lists the property for $550,000 and a buyer agrees to pay $520,000, the agent and the seller may be delighted. But – and this is the major point – if the buyers would have paid $530,000, the agent did not obtain the HIGHEST price. The agent could have obtained more.
If an agent sells a property for anything less than it could have sold for, the agent has not done the best for the seller.
Your agent you must be a skilled negotiator and have your interests in mind at all times. Your agent must study and think about the various methods to get you the highest price possible. Real Estate is not complicated. It just requires some extra thought. Most agents rarely think about how they can always get the highest price.
THE 3 TYPES OF PRICES
The secret to getting the highest price – as opposed to a high price – is to move away from the traditional way agents think.
Most agents focus on two price aspects – either the “value” of the property (what they believe it is ‘worth’ based on comparable sales in the area) or the price the seller wants. Invariably, it’s the agent’s task to reduce the seller’s ‘want’ until it matches the ‘value’. The major focus is the price the owner wants. The lowest price the owner agrees to accept is, almost always, the highest price the owner gets.
But there is a third price aspect – one rarely focused upon – and that’s the price the buyer is prepared to pay. Just as sellers inflate the price from fear of selling too low, buyers deflate the price from fear of buying too high. Each side wants the best for themselves. This is natural.
Most real estate is sold by lowering the seller’s price until it matches the buyer’s price, or raising the buyer’s price until it matches the seller’s price, or a combination of both. Get the buyer up, get the seller down and make a sale.
This often gets a high price for the seller, but not the highest price. The reason is simple: when the buyer’s offer meets the seller’s minimum, the property is sold. There is too much focus on the seller’s minimum, which is the price at which most properties sell. Even if the price is high, often the buyer would have paid more.
A good negotiator always gets this ‘more’ from the buyer.
Article by Gary Pittard