How to negotiate a price reduction

I really, really hate chipping price during escrow. Do you know what I mean by “chipping price”? It’s when the buyer, after doing his diligence, comes back and requests a price reduction from the seller in exchange for removing contingencies and moving forward with the deal.

Why do I hate it? I do an enormous number of deals in a relatively small area. I see the same brokers again and again. Sure, I might be able to chip someone once, but what happens the next time I want to do a deal with that broker? Likely, he’s going to tell his client that they can’t trust my offer, because I’ll just come back and lower it. So, in order to make sure that I and my clients get the absolute best shot at every attractive deal that comes on the market, I make it a point not to to screw around.

That being said, there are occasionally situations where asking for price reduction is unavoidable. For example, we sometimes come across buildings where the square footage as measured during inspections is materially different (by more than 1,000 sq ft) from the public records. In those situations, you can’t not ask for a reduction.

So, what do you do?

Here’s what I do: I present the seller with two signed documents:

  1. Signed cancellation instructions; and
  2. An amendment removing all contingencies conditional upon a price reduction to $X (whatever price I need to make the deal work)

Why do I do it like this? Pretty simple, really. The point is to show the seller that we’re not just screwing around and trying to chip price for no reason. We’re saying the property is really not what we thought it was and the deal absolutely does not work at the price, so we’re willing to walk away, and all the seller needs to do to make that happen is to counter-sign the cancellation instructions and we’re done.

If, on the other hand, the seller is amenable to the price reduction, he can simply sign the amendment and be confident that the deal is now non-contingent and no further price reductions will be requested / required.