Putting Your Mobile Home Buyers First

Hi all,

Real estate investing is a business. A MONEY MAKING business. Our money making businesses! Most of us do not have formal training or extended social skills to properly run our real estate investing business day one.As we progress in our real estate career, if we stay in business, we learn and grow into the kind of investors we choose and practice to become.

However, without proper and constant tweaking to our day to day activities we can hold onto a bad character traits we may not even be aware are hurting our businesses and ultimately our wallets.You could be giving away thousands of dollars at the closing table you never realized you could have kept for yourself with no extra work.

Here’s what I mean.When talking with sellers it is crucial to remember not to internalize the sellers problems as your own.The seller is most likely in a position that is unfortunate and I will be the first to admit that bad things happen to good people.However, your goal is to solve their problem while making the numbers work for your buyers!

Every home we sell to our buyers or rent to our tenants we first must get from a seller.Keep in mind that as investors we are in business for our buyers; they are the ones making us wealthy.There is no way we can give the seller the price they most likely are looking for AND our buyer a great deal.There would be no money in the middle for us.

Here are some ways to help you stay tough with sellers while negotiating deals:

1.       Stay firm with your price and/or terms.No buyer or seller respects anyone that doesn’t hold his ground in a deal.Some flexibility is OK to structure win-win deals and allow the other person to feel as if they won a little too but any quick waffling in price sends an unprofessional, flaky, dishonest or disingenuous message to the other player.

2.       Refer to a hirer authority.If you have trouble being a tough guy/gal or the bad cop, refer to a higher authority.Blame the low price or terms on a tough boss, partner, committee or group of investors that lend you money and expect certain returns.This way you can be a friend rather than an opponent.

3.       Remember your reason. Besides the reason that you are trying to get the home for as cheap as possible so you can retire on some deserted island in the Caribbean, you probably have a reason as to the price point you are offering for the property, whether it is due to: repairs, LTV, terms, the economy, supply and demand, etc.  Be honest with your seller and confess that you can only offer so much money because you are in business to make money.If the seller is firmly seeking a higher price from a serious buyer that can close quickly wish them luck and move on., you will be respected and just may hear back from them when they can’t sell months down the road.

4.       Never become emotional about an investment property. I heard a great quote that is so true in this business.“The person that wants the deal more loses in the negotiation.” Think about the last time you really wanted something (whatever it was) and you became emotional about getting it.Did you offer more than you should have?Or contrary if trying to sell a piece of junk that’s been giving you problems for years, you may just decide to deed the problem over to someone and wash your hands of it completely, missing the profit to be made because you are clouded with emotions.Always be prepared to walk away from a deal!

Remember that there is a big difference between sympathy and empathy.

hope this helped & Let me know what you think…

To a Happy and Hugely Profitable 2010!

John  Fedro

Tags: buyers, negotiation