Real estate agents provide clients with a long list of important services. Agents are experts at pricing property, interpreting the market, advising clients on preparing homes for sale, advising clients on choosing property to purchase, and marketing property to attract buyers. Yet, out of all the services that real estate agents provide to clients; by far the most important service is the ability for the agent to negotiate the best terms for a buyer or seller.
New agents should look to their brokers for assistance to develop negotiating skills.
Most people assume that the heart of the best deal involves price. Sometimes this is true. Sometimes what is most important to a buyer or seller is price.
Good real estate agents, though, take time to determine what else (besides price) is important to their clients. And then they work to ascertain what seems to be most important to the opposing party in a deal. That way, the agent can create a deal that hits the points important to each!
For example, let’s say a buyer really doesn’t want to pay list price for a home. In talking with the seller’s agent, the buyer’s agent learns that the seller doesn’t yet have a property to move to upon selling. Knowing that the buyer had flexibility in a moving date, the buyer’s agent suggested making an offer that combined a lower purchase price with an extended move out date for the seller.
A long career in real estate will result in a long list of skills held by the agent. Skills in negotiating deals will be at the top of the list!
By Pamela Kemper, Instructor
Azure Tide All Florida School of Real Estate
For more information see references:
Florida Real Estate Sales Associate Post-Licensing Excellence by Pamela Kemper