This article from Lawpack's Sell your own Home Kit discusses how to reach a final selling price with a buyer of your house or flat.
Once you have hooked a buyer, you may have to steel yourself for some tough and nail-bitingly tense negotiations before you arrive at a price you are happy to accept.
Unless there is a lot of competition for properties, your buyer is likely to open the negotiations by offering a low price. For example, you reckon your property is worth £325,000. You put it on the market at £350,000, hoping to attract offers of between £320,000 and £330,000.What you get is an offer of £310,000.
The buyer seems keen, but how do you nudge him towards the figure you want? The answer is to keep your nerve and launch a subtle psychological battle of wits. Your buyer knows that the asking price of £350,000 is more than the house is worth. You, the seller, know that it is worth more than the £310,000 he has offered. Now is the time to make sure your buyer knows just how desirable your property is. You must get over the message that if he doesn't move quickly, the property is likely to be snapped up by other buyers.
A good technique is to empathise with your buyer. Tell him you would love to see him living in your house and it would break your heart to sell to anyone else, but sadly you can't accept their offer and you can't wait for ever.
Create tension and suspense. One technique is to remain incommunicado for a couple of days. Nervous buyers will suspect that you have gone cold on them and may be discussing an offer from another buyer. Try sweetening the pill with an offer to throw in the curtains for free or leave a particular piece of furniture which your buyer has said he likes, if he can only see his way to increasing his offer to, say, £330,000. He then comes back with an offer of, say, £315,000, and you finally settle on £325,000 and everyone is satisfied.
Your buyer thinks he has got a bargain, and you have got an offer in line with what you think your property is worth.
Once you have accepted an offer it is a good idea to keep in close contact with your buyer's estate agent to make sure that his own property sale is going through smoothly and to head off any potential problems at an early stage.
