Negotiating directly with vendor

[Erin Woods]

Has anyone ever managed to negotiate directly with a vendor? Not attempting to avoid commission to the RE agent at all- just trying to cut down the BS when negotiating price, terms and conditions between professional investors and professional vendors (eg developers etc).

Is it possible to arrange a face to face to facilitate negotiation.

 

[Richard Feynman]

It can't hurt to try, though I wouldn't count on it.

The agent will get their commission regardless (assuming they're working under a exclusive agency agreement or sole agency agreement where the agent introduced the buyer) so no worries in that department but agents are trained to be great communicators, readers of body language, negotiators etc and might not want to have a "helpless" vendor dealing with a potentially savage purchaser

An aside, I've been at a few opens where I spotted the vendor and had a chat to them to dig into their motives a bit deeper and do some negotiating. Agents weren't fussed in those cases -- maybe because the vendor was already present and they knew that might happen.