Similarities Of Sealing Prime Home Purchases With Solution Selling

Spoiler Alert: Price is not an over-riding factor.

I discovered the interesting switcheroo at play from disclosure of someone helping secure prime property for the past twenty years in the fierce London house market [sub'n req'd].

Here's opening observations offered;

Securing your first-choice property at the right price isn’t always a straightforward numbers game.
Beating the competition ... hinges as much on your behaviour and understanding of the seller’s motivation as it does on your budget or negotiating prowess.

I nodded along to hearing that the "take it or leave it" approach usually "backfires". Which mirrors our experiences I'd say. If a buyer states that to us, it can sound klaxons on future relationship worth. If we say it to a potential buyer, they may well laugh in our face. It can be seen as a universal bluff, think how often you've seen it then called in B2B.

A tactic singled out enjoying prominence reveals "delayed completions are increasingly common". You could write a post on that alone. It seems sellers increasingly value time to move, often to align with school calendars, and plump for an appreciation of extra three- or six-month buffer.

Options in payment terms, resource allocation and various type of piloting have long been our friend here. Let's not forget them.

Here's a key paragraph;

How to be a ‘safe bet’ buyer

We have won 85pc of competitive bid scenarios, even though in 65pc of those cases, our clients were not the highest or the strongest bidder. Many sellers in this market are fatigued and they don’t want to risk their sale falling through and having to start again, or the stress caused by a buyer chipping the price at the last minute. They want a credible, reliable buyer who will give them a smooth, guaranteed sale, even if they’re offering a bit less.

This overall hit-rate suggests impressively closing roughly 1 in every 1.2 deals. Of which two-thirds are won when someone else has what you'd say was on the face of it, a more attractive price.

Those credibility, reliability signals from elements of no eleventh hour price changes and smooth (after) sale guarantee have serious appeal in our realm too.

One final aspect I recognised, was the gazump. Or perhaps in our terms, the gazunder.

For I myself have entered the panic stations when knowing we were preferred, the big blue-chip market bully with the higher-priced yet inferior-suiting product suddenly drops their price through the floor at the death.

I struggle to recall a single time when then losing out to such a move.

Even when, under Finance dept pressure, the buyer has parroted the competitor sales spiel. A "special end of year discount pot has just been released". "Our CEO insists strategic clients like you are worth it to us". "In return we'd like to record your site as a key reference case study".

Yet despite now being the more expensive choice, still prevail.

Also confirming the axiom, it's never about price. Which we'd do well to remind ourselves of from time to time. As summed by their concluding thoughts, which I duly annotate;

"I’ve seen countless situations where buyers sellers have alienated sellers buyers by ignoring the soft signals and failing to read the room – then they have been shocked to learn they’ve lost out to someone else. Sometimes it is all about the money, but even in a sticky market such as this, sellers buyers can and will reject buyers sellers they don’t trust."