Well, good afternoon, everybody. This is Chris Berger, and yes, it’s time for a Berger Point.

You know, one of the most challenging times in the whole real estate transaction is really the offer and acceptance and how we negotiate that.

And myself personally, when the listing agent is selling a house for $500,000 and I do represent the buyer and the buyer comes in and makes an offer of $480,000.

Now it’s key because I want to see how much the listing agent or the seller is going to come down and how close he’s going to get to our offer, which was 480.

So we’re $20,000 apart.

So I look for two things.

Does he come down $10,000 or does he come down $1,000?

Because that makes a difference because if he is coming down that $10,000, he’s indeed willing to negotiate a little bit further.

So I go back and prepare my buyer to that scenario.

However, if he’s talking about coming down $1,000, I’ll go back to my buyer and say, listen, if you want this house, you’re going to have to go after it and get closer to his price.

So this way I’m justifying to my buyer the reality of the real price in order to get that home.

Because ultimately my job is to make sure that my buyer gets that house.

And if he winds up paying a couple thousand dollars more, well, over the next 20 or 30 years, it doesn’t matter because my buyer will have his dream house.

And that’s the goal.

***

You know, my favorite hat has always been a Brian Wilson.

I’ve seen him a couple of times, met him.

And it was extraordinary.

And it’s something that you’ll just never forget.

So this is Chris Berger, Hudson Valley Realtor.