I attended the USD free negotiation class the other day (presented via Zoom). I got a few takeways from it:
- virtual negotiations don't show inflection or emotions
- virtual negotiations dont have a time for sides to "caucus" or consult
- virtual negotations are going to be more popular, even after the COVID scare is over
The Barcaks had some good suggestions for how to get over these challenges but I thought, for the most part, real estate brokers and agents really don't "negotiate" anymore-- they just email offers and counter offers. The art of "presenting in person" is lost (and that's a shame).
I was lamenting this to a friend of mine, who is a real estate broker in Florida, and he told me of an experiment he tried last month. He assembled the buyers, the lender, and him, all together on a Zoom call, and outlined the offer to purchase property. Here is the best part-- he used the "record" function and created a video, uploaded it to Dropbox (with password protection) and shared the video link with the listing agent.
Voila! He just created an offer presentation "in person". Rather than "write a buyer letter" and "enclose a lender pre-approval" (which he did anyway), his buyers had 2-3 minutes to tell the seller all about their family and why they wanted the seller's house. The lender was able to talk about the buyers' strong loan approval. He outlined the offer, along with an estimated sellers's net sheet (he does his research)
He got the offer accepted. Maybe he was the highest offer but maybe, just maybe, the sellers felt more comfortable because they saw an offer "in person". My friend told me about this experiment and said he was going to expand it to his seller counter-offers too.
Real estate is a people business and the more we can humanize our clients, the more likely the other side will be willing to consider their offers and counteroffers. I dont know how to do this yet but, if you are interested in exploring this idea with me, please call me over the weekend or on Monday
