
Negotiating the right price
What are you negotiating?
In order to negotiate prices, you first need to know how much your property is worth. Experts recommend having the value of your property professionally assessed. This is the only way to ensure that you have a solid basis for negotiation on which you can confidently defend your price.
However, you should not use the determined value as a basis for negotiation. Instead, consider a suitable pricing strategy. Setting the price higher to allow for more room for negotiation is often not a good idea. This strategy usually does not work. Instead, demand will decrease and the property will become a slow seller. If you then lower the price, many interested parties will notice, because anyone looking for a property in a certain location keeps a close eye on relevant listings. However, a property that has been on the market for a long time but is getting cheaper and cheaper makes most interested parties skeptical.
Given the current high demand on the real estate market, it sometimes makes more sense to choose an asking price that is below the appraised value. This encourages various potential buyers to make offers. Another option would be to set a price for your property that is fairly close to the market value or even slightly below it. As a rule, this approach results in shorter negotiations, buyers decide more quickly in favor of your property, and in the end, both sides are satisfied with the sale price.
How do you negotiate?
When negotiating the price, it is particularly important to be well prepared. You know exactly what your property is worth and what you can ask for it. Prospective buyers often point out defects in an attempt to negotiate the price down. For this reason, it is important for you to be aware of all defects and to be open about them. If the value of your property has been professionally assessed, any defects will already have been factored into the asking price. From this point on, it is easier to defend the price. However, if you have little experience in negotiation and are not sufficiently familiar with the current situation on the real estate market, it is often difficult not to be thrown off balance by the persistent demands of potential buyers.
A professional real estate agent, on the other hand, knows exactly how to act in price negotiations thanks to their many years of experience. They know all the tricks buyers use and can use their in-depth market knowledge to counter their attempts to drive down the price. In addition, most real estate sellers have far too little time in their everyday lives to thoroughly prepare for negotiations and ensure that nothing goes wrong.
Are you still unsure about the best negotiation strategy for your property? Contact us without obligation! We will be happy to advise you.
Need more information?
- Wikipedia: Real estate market
- statista.com: Real estate prices for all years of construction in Germany
Legal notice: This article does not constitute tax or legal advice in individual cases. Please have the facts of your specific case clarified by a lawyer and/or tax advisor.
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