Negotiating Real Estate? Avoid These Mistakes & Be a Winner

Negotiating a real estate or a business contract is not as simple as it normally appears.

It takes years to learn and master the art of negotiations

It requires a delicate balance of emotions, eagerness, enthusiasm, optimism, willingness, openness, strategic moves, knowledge of the subject being negotiated, hopes and fears of possible consequences of failure and success and the skillful use of all these factors to bring in a successful agreement..

Many inexperienced negotiators make serious errors and errors in judgment. These can be avoided by training and experience. Here below are some common mistakes:

Not Doing Home Work: Not knowing the value of the product being negotiated. Once the other party finds that out, it sets the tone for the unfavourable final outcome.

Overbidding: showing eagerness and overbidding right at the beginning. You stop being a negotiator and behave more like the one who is willing to write a blank cheque.

Unrealistic Underbidding; the greed takes over and the negotiator bids too low setting the stage for difficult negotiations and sometime making it impossible to successfully negotiate. The other party sometime gets insulted and refuses to negotiate or takes a much harder position.

Being Impatient: Some negotiators are too impatient. They get rattled too easily and become very uncomfortable with the silence and uncertainty from the other side. They get impatient and fearful of losing the deal and submit a higher offer without knowing the outcome of the earlier bid. The other side obviously takes advantage.

Dictating the terms: Negotiations are mostly a give and take process. It should not be considered as a surrender by the other side. The untimely use of words like ultimatum -final offer -take it or leave it offer at inappropriate time are harbinger of hostile atmosphere and failure.

Talking too much: Many negotiators listen less and talk too much. They get carried away and give away too much information which ultimately compromises their position. Very soon they are like a poker player who has shown all his cards.

Failure to Judge the situation: During the negotiations, there comes a time to be tough, time to appear flexible; time to compromise and time to walk away. Not knowing when to exercise these moves is another major factor of failure. Learning these negotiating moves takes years, nevertheless, experience and having a mentor can help and speed up the process of learning.

Want to be a Successful Negotiator? Have a Mentor, observe and Practice.

Creative Birthday Presents – Kid Created

I remember walking into my kitchen and seeing it lying on the counter. It was beautiful. It was wrapped in paper painted with my daughter’s tiny hand prints, and tied with red yarn and a yellow rose from my own garden. Inside was a picture of my two-year-old and me, in a wooden frame that she had painted herself. My eyes began to tear with the realization of the time, attention and love that went into this creative birthday gift.

Creative birthday presents that are handmade by small children make perfect gifts. There are many wonderful ideas that are easy, inexpensive and fun. For babies, toddlers and small children the most personal thing they can create is a hand or foot print. With one of these print projects, you can create special gifts that are memorable and cherished.

First, you need to make some prints.
You will need;

o Old baking pan for your paint
o Washable, non-toxic paint
o Sponge or brush
o Art paper or roll of paper
o A basin of warm, soapy water

For feet, brush or sponge paint on the foot, or dip the foot in the paint. Stand the baby on the paper, lifting the child up and down. A toddler or small child can actually walk on the paper.
For hand prints, you can paint the hands or let the child “grab” the paint themselves. Help them press, and then lift their hands on and off of the paper.

After you’re finished, use the warm, soapy water in the basin to wash off the paint.
Once you have a few “good” prints, let them dry completely and then cut them out. Save your originals and color copy the best prints at your local print shop or on your home printer. These copies are easier to work with and allow you to make multiple creative birthday presents.

Once you have your copies, use the prints and a little creative writing to;

o Glue a print and a birthday wish on the inside cover of a homemade picture or music CD.
o Decoupage the print(s) on a finished piece of wood or ceramic tile to make a plaque.
o Using card stock or construction paper, use prints to make homemade birthday cards.
o Scan the prints and use iron-on transfer paper to create personalized t-shirts, aprons, sweatshirts, pillowcases, etc.
o Frame the print(s), and add the special date in calligraphy

You can also make homemade wrapping paper. Wrap presents in large finger-paint pictures or large pieces of rolled paper that the child has freely painted with their hands or feet. For more fun, play music and ask the children to “dance” on the paper with their painted feet.

Use twine, yarn or ribbon to tie the gift wrap. Cut out a print, punch a hole near the top and thread it through the ribbon for a matching gift tag.

Crafting these creative birthday presents is a great way to spend quality time with your child. The result is a unique keepsake that really shows how much you care.

Commercial Agents Prepare Well for Your Listing Presentation

As a real estate agent, the frequency of presenting your business and yourself as the agent of choice is high. As you do more prospecting in your local property market, you will be presenting in front of clients and prospects at least once a day. Your success in the process is therefore critical to your listing conversions.

In most listing situations there will be at least one or two other real estate agents presenting to the prospect on or about the same day. You will only have a short time with the prospect to convince them that you are the best choice of agent in the current market.

Preparation is the key to a listing presentation and sales pitch. Your ability to connect with and involve the other person is also critical. Here are some rules that should be adopted:

  1. Before you start the listing presentation, converse with the other person(s) to understand their focus and concerns. Draw out their comments and ideas that can impact or challenge what you may have to say in the presentation.
  2. Remember that the prospect will enjoy being the centre of attention in any presentation and will generally talk openly to you if asked. Open questions are the key here for you to use.
  3. Pick the character of the client or prospect at the earliest stages of the presentation. You will have to adjust your conversational style to suit their character.
  4. A listing presentation has to be about the needs of the prospect and their property; it is not about you, your business, or your knowledge. Always bring your presentation focus to the client and their property.
  5. Inspect the property before you meet with the client, so you can bring the property into the conversation in a relevant and interesting way. Your personal awareness of the property and the location will give you leverage in the presentation.
  6. Have a group of facts and details to use that are relevant to the sales and enquiry rate of the current market. As part of that process use newspaper clippings and other third party supporting evidence to influence the clients thinking.
  7. If you have a camera and laptop computer that you can use in the presentation, take a number of photos around the property, the location, and the competing properties before the actual presentation. These photos can be used as a slide show running automatically as you present your listing strategy to the client or prospect. Well-chosen photos of their property and location are most important and of the greatest interest to the client.
  8. Understand where the competing properties are located in the area that can impact the subject property, and then have a pricing and marketing strategy set to solve that competition.
  9. Define the target market clearly for the prospect so they can see how their property will be promoted, to whom, and why. Give current facts and figures relative to the activities and enquiry in and from the target market.
  10. Develop at least 5 selling advantages or property focus points that you can build your marketing campaign around. Those points will have relevance to the target market.
  11. Have 3 alternative marketing campaigns designed for use and the selective choice of the prospect. Run through all campaigns explaining the differences but give the prospect an opportunity to decide what campaign they require based on market impact and price.
  12. The presentation is best undertaken with at least three of the senses active for the prospect. That is sight, sound, and touch. Give them something to feel and review as you talk (a proposal will be ideal), speak about the property from the prospects base of need, and show the prospect things about the property that you see as relevant to the marketing strategy.
  13. Create some draft marketing material to show the prospect how their property will look in some of your most important marketing methods.

The sales pitch and presentation strategy that you use should be as natural as possible to your character. For this reason use words and the conversational style that you are comfortable with. The most successful sales people in the industry practice their words and their presentations so they are visibly confident and relevant to the prospects to whom they present.