How Selling Works, Part 8: Negotiating the Deal

Why a counter-offer Is About (SO MUCH) More Than Price

Last time, we talked about what actually matters when an offer lands on your desk. Financing, earnest money, contingencies, timeline, the whole picture, not just the price.

You’re now through that careful analysis, and almost ready to put pen to paper and get this transaction moving.

But you’re not ready to sign it exactly as it sits.

That’s normal. That’s negotiation. And it rarely looks like what people expect.

It’s Almost Never Just About the Number

Most sellers picture negotiation as a tug of war over price alone.

One side pulls up, the other pulls down, and somewhere in the middle everybody shakes hands.

After 20 years doing this, I can tell you that’s not usually how it plays out.

A counter-offer from a seller is often about terms, not dollars. Closing date vs. possession date. Who pays for what. What stays in the house. Financing nuances. How much time the buyer gets to remove their contingencies.

Price is the headline. Terms are where “the rest of the conversation” happens.

What’s Actually on the Table

When I sit down to write a counter-offer with a seller, we’re rarely touching just one line.

We’re looking at the closing date, and whether it lines up with where you’re moving to next.

We’re looking at who pays the HOA transfer fees, whether the buyer wants your washer and dryer thrown in, and how many days they’re asking for to finish their inspection.

Every one of those is a lever. Move one, and you can often get comfortable without moving the price at all.

The Inspection Response

This is where most of the real negotiating happens, and it usually happens after you’re already under contract.

The buyer’s inspector finds something. Doesn’t matter how well you prepped the house, they almost always find something.

Now the buyer comes back with a request. Sometimes it’s a repair. Sometimes it’s a credit at closing instead.

This is where I ask sellers to keep our eyes on the prize, and separate the size of the ask from the size of the problem.

A $1200 water heater issue and a $12,000 drainage problem generate the same kind of anxious phone call, but they are not the same negotiation.

We want to take a breath, remove both ours and the buyers’ emotions, stay focused on the desired outcome, and know which one we’re actually looking at before we respond.

Appraisal Gaps

If the buyer is financing the purchase and the appraisal comes in under the contract price, with no “Form 22AD” in the Purchase Agreement, we’ve got a gap to close.

Who covers it? Does the buyer bring extra cash? Do you come down to the appraised value? Do you split the difference?

There’s no universal right answer here. It depends on how much room you have, how much room your buyer actually has, and how the home has performed relative to the rest of the market during our Active listing period.

Read What the Buyer Actually Wants

Some buyers want a deal. Some buyers want your house.

Those are two different negotiations.

A buyer who has already mentally moved in, who’s planning how they’re going to decorate at Christmas, tends to bend more on terms than a buyer who’s treating your home as one of four options on a spreadsheet.

You can’t always tell which one you’re dealing with from the offer alone. But their agent’s tone, their response time, the letter they may have written, it all tells us something.

When to Hold Firm

Not every request deserves a yes, and not every request deserves a fight either.

I’ve had sellers hold firm on a $1,500 repair credit and lose a buyer over it, on a home that sat for another 60 days afterward.

I’ve also had sellers hold firm on a bigger number because the ask genuinely wasn’t reasonable, and the buyer came back the next day and signed anyway.

There’s no formula that fits every situation. But there is a question worth asking every time: what does saying no actually cost me here, in time and in risk, compared to what saying yes costs?

Final Thoughts

Negotiating a home sale isn’t a single moment. It’s a series of small decisions, each one a chance to protect what matters most to you without blowing up a deal that’s already most of the way there.

The sellers who do this well aren’t the ones who fight over every dollar. They’re the ones who know which fights are worth having.

In Part 9 of this series, we’ll talk about the actual transaction: what actually goes on between an accepted contract and closing day.

Until then... if a counter-offer lands in your inbox, read past the price line before you decide how you feel about it… and keep your eyes on the prize.