Cover article continued ... Last year, I made a deal on another house not too far from Bridle Lane. The after-repair value of the house was $175,000. The repairs were $80,000, and the seller started at $80,000. The Magic Question got him down to $65,000. But after looking at the numbers, the best offer for us was $20,000. My acquisitionist justified the offer, and he took it. The math makes the decision. You never know what a seller will attempt until you make the offer. Know What a Good Deal Looks Like After my contractor went out and crunched the numbers for the repairs on Bridle Lane, I used this data to make my first offer. I reviewed the contractor’s numbers and told my acquisitionist to offer the seller $60,000. It wasn’t long before she got back to me. “Jay, the seller is livid,” my acquisitionist informed me. Well, it’s not the first time a seller was unhappy with my offer. The seller was threatening to come down from where he lived in Ohio to finish the rehab himself before he was willing to take a penny less than $80,000. In his mind, he’d already given up $20,000 after the Magic Question. Fortunately, my acquisitionist knew exactly how to deal with these emotions. Following the script I trained her with, she said to the seller, “Jay has not been to the house. All he’s doing is looking at numbers. So let me ask Jay to personally go look at the house, and we’ll get back to you. I’m sure we can work something out.” The next day, I personally went to the house, and I saw why this man wasn’t taking a penny less. There were brand-new cabinets, doors, windows, HVAC, and even a new roof! The house was over halfway done. The next time my acquisitionist called the seller, she made sure to use his own language when she told him, “Jay understands why you will not go one penny less than $80,000. I have convinced Jay to offer you your price of $80,000.” At this point, the seller happily took the offer. It wasn’t the $60,000 I’d offered, but when I looked at the house, I knew the deal I had on my hands, and I wasn’t going to lose it by being needlessly stubborn. I developed this negotiation strategy over years of trial and error. I’ll admit that I let great deals slip by early in my career because I didn’t have a coach and therefore didn’t know how to make the right offer. Of course, I wouldn’t be able to make these great offers today were it not for the private money I already have lined up before making offers.
Have You Heard the Good News … As it Relates to Success?
Proverbs 16:3 "Commit your works to the Lord And your plans will be established." Romans 8:28 "And we know that God causes all things to work together for good to those who love God, to those who are called according to His purpose." Psalm 90:17 New American Standard Bible (NASB) "Let the favor of the Lord our God be upon us; And confirm for us the work of our hands; Yes, confirm the work of our hands." Proverbs 15:22 "Without consultation, plans are frustrated, But with many counselors they succeed."
Remember this: “The more offers you make, the more houses you buy, the more money you make.”
–Jay Conner
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