I come from Indonesia, where like in most Asian countries, we negotiate almost everything before buying. In lots of cases this takes lots of time before a deal can be reached. Of course, it’s become a habit of many Asian people, and it carries over to when they’re older.
Yesterday, I mentioned that an offer was made to our condo unit.Well, today I’m gonna be talking about negotiating vs time wasting due to that offer :).
In buying and selling, of course there will always be negotiation about compensation, price and details. My problem is if one part of the negotiators try to lowball the other by making unreasonable demands and thus waste time for both sides. This promotes feelings of distrust and hostile intent. In such cases, negotiation becomes an act of war, where both sides try to destroy the other by getting a one sided deal.
This morning, the other agent presented the offer from the people interested in buying the unit, and it was so far below market value, it’s not even funny. Case in point: there is another unit for sale on the same floor as us, smaller and lacks a couple of features that our unit has such as in suite storage and outside the bedroom laundry. That condo is almost $20, 000 lower in price than ours. Consider that the offer these people made was $20, 000 BELOW THAT OTHER UNIT’s price. In essence, they’re making an offer for our unit at a price about $30, 000 below the market value.
I understand the need to negotiate better pricing, but in cases such as these, negotiating turns to time wasting, since we have to counter, then counter, then counter and so on. If it weren’t for the patience and advice of my wife and our agent, I wouldn’t have even dignified that offer with a counter, telling them to come back when they’re serious. I mean, can’t people realize that this is wasteful of time for both sides? The sheer idiocy of some people just escape my thinking. If the offer were reasonable, I would’ve countered with a lower price, but just for that insulting offer, I’d probably turn this into an act of war 
Tags: Negotiating, Negotiation, Time Wasting
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