I just wrapped up negotiations with a buyer to purchase a new construction townhome in the south metro. When the dust cleared, we negotiated about $5000 off of the listing price of $170,000. In this market, that doesn’t sound like a good deal, does it?
On the face of it, $5000 off of $170,000 is ok, but nothing to write home about. What if I told you that a month earlier it was listing at $175,000? Would that make it sound like a better deal? What if I told you that this townhome was originally going for about $190,000 under two years ago? My buyers and I looked at everything else on the market and we agreed that this was a great value. Had we only payed attention to the price we saved off the list price, we’d likely feel different.
In this market, please remember that some houses are priced better than others and as such, if you make an offer on a well-priced house, you’re negotiated price is going to be closer to asking price. That doesn’t make it any less of “deal.”