How Much Can You Actually Negotiate on a House?
You find a house you love. You look at the list price. And almost immediately, the question comes up:
How much less can we offer?
We get it. Nobody wants to pay more than they need to. But there isn't a magic percentage that buyers should automatically knock off the asking price.
Sometimes there's room to negotiate tens of thousands of dollars. Sometimes asking for $5,000 less could cost you the house. And sometimes the best negotiation has very little to do with the purchase price at all.
The better question is:
How much negotiating power do we have on this particular house?
That's what we're trying to figure out before we help a buyer write an offer.
The List Price Is Just the Starting Point
The asking price tells us what the seller would like to get. It doesn't necessarily tell us what the home is worth or what the seller will ultimately accept.
Before deciding what to offer, we want to understand the whole picture.
What have comparable homes actually sold for? How long has this one been on the market? Has the seller already reduced the price? Are there other interested buyers? What condition is the home in? What are homes in this particular area and price range doing right now?
A home that was listed yesterday and already has multiple offers is a completely different negotiation from a home that's been sitting for two months with very little activity.
Same buyer. Same market. Completely different strategy.
Days on Market Can Tell Us a Lot—But They Can Also Fool You
Generally, the longer a home has been sitting on the market, the more curious we get about whether there's room to negotiate.
But here's one of the crazy things we've seen more than once.
A house sits on the market for 100+ days. Our buyers find it, fall in love, and decide they want to write an offer.
We call the listing agent thinking we may have some negotiating room...
Only to find out another offer just came in.
Seriously. Where were all of you for the last 100 days?
It's a good reminder that days on market are useful information, but they don't tell us everything. A house can sit forever and suddenly have two interested buyers on the same weekend.
That's why we always want to know what's happening right now before deciding how aggressive we can be.
If there's truly no competition, a long time on market may give us leverage. If another buyer just showed up, the strategy can change very quickly.
We Look at the History of the House, Too
This is something buyers don't always realize we're looking at behind the scenes.
A home can look fantastic in the current listing—fresh paint, new flooring, trendy finishes, beautiful photos—and still make us stop and ask some questions.
One of the things we'll do is look at the property's history in the MLS.
Sometimes we'll discover that the house just sold three months ago for significantly less. Now it's back on the market with some cosmetic updates and a price tag that's $200,000 higher.
That's when we start digging.
What actually changed?
Was there a substantial renovation that supports the new value? Were major systems replaced? Was meaningful square footage added or improved?
Or did someone mostly put lipstick on a pig and give it a much prettier price tag?
There's nothing wrong with someone buying a home, improving it, and reselling it for a profit. And a beautifully renovated home may absolutely be worth considerably more than it was before.
We just want to understand why.
We don't want our buyers getting so caught up in beautiful staging, fresh paint, and pretty finishes that they lose sight of what they're actually paying for.
We're not just looking at what the seller is asking today.
We're looking at the story of the house.
And that history can absolutely affect how we think about value and how we approach an offer.
A Price Reduction Doesn't Automatically Mean the Seller Will Take Less
This one can be a little counterintuitive.
You see that a seller just dropped the price $20,000 and think:
Great. Now let's offer another $20,000 less.
Maybe.
But a price reduction can also bring an entirely new group of buyers into the picture.
A home that wasn't getting much attention at $625,000 may suddenly become a lot more interesting at $599,000. That new price may put it into more buyers' searches—and potentially create competition that wasn't there before.
So we don't look at a price reduction by itself.
We want to know what happened after the reduction.
Did showings increase? How long has the new price been in place? Is anyone else interested?
That's much more useful than simply seeing a price drop and assuming the seller is desperate.
Negotiating Isn't Just About Price
This is probably one of the biggest things buyers miss.
Let's say a seller isn't willing to take another $10,000 off the purchase price.
That doesn't necessarily mean the negotiation is over.
Depending on the transaction, there may be other things worth discussing:
Seller-paid closing costs
Contributions toward an interest-rate buydown
Repairs
A home warranty
Appliances or other included items
Closing or possession dates
Other contract terms that matter to you or the seller
Sometimes the terms are more valuable to you than another small reduction in price.
For example, if the amount of cash you need at closing is your biggest concern, getting the seller to contribute toward closing costs may help you considerably more than reducing the purchase price by the same amount.
That's why we don't negotiate just for the sake of saying, Look how much we got them down!
We'd rather ask:
What would actually benefit you the most?
The Highest Offer Isn't Always the Best Offer
This is something we talk about with both buyers and sellers all the time.
Imagine a seller receives two offers.
One is technically higher, but that buyer needs significant closing costs, has a home to sell first, or has other terms that create more uncertainty for the seller.
The other offer might be slightly lower but have stronger financing, a timeline the seller prefers, or terms that make the overall transaction more attractive.
Which one is actually better?
It depends on what matters to that seller.
That's also why we don't want buyers to assume that their only option in a competitive situation is to keep throwing more money at the house.
Price matters. A lot.
But so do the rest of the terms.
When we're writing an offer, we're trying to understand what might matter to the seller while still protecting the things that matter to you.
Sometimes making an offer stronger in one area gives us more room to ask for something in another.
What About the Inspection?
The due diligence period can create another opportunity for negotiation, but we don't think every inspection item needs to turn into one.
There's also an important difference between something you already knew about when you made the offer and something you couldn't reasonably have known until you did your inspections.
If the kitchen was obviously dated when you walked through the house, it's probably not very persuasive to come back later and ask for money because...the kitchen is dated.
You knew that when you offered.
But an inspection or test may uncover something significant that wasn't visible during your showing.
That's a different conversation.
We encourage our buyers to do the appropriate inspections and testing during their due diligence period so they understand what they're buying. If something significant comes up, we'll talk through the options.
Maybe it makes sense to ask the seller to repair it. Maybe we ask for a credit or a price adjustment. Maybe there's another solution.
And sometimes the right answer is to ask for nothing.
We don't love turning an inspection into a giant wish list of every imperfect thing in the house. We're much more interested in identifying the things that actually matter and figuring out the best way to handle them.
Seller Motivation Matters—But We Don't Pretend to Know What We Don't Know
People sell homes for all kinds of reasons.
Maybe they've already bought another house. Maybe they're relocating. Maybe they're settling an estate. Maybe they're downsizing.
Or maybe they're perfectly comfortable staying put unless somebody gives them the price they want.
Motivation can absolutely affect how flexible a seller is.
But unless the seller or listing agent has shared that information, we don't pretend we know what's happening behind the scenes.
Instead, we look at the information we can verify, ask good questions, and use what we learn to help you make a decision.
Sometimes the answers tell us there's room to push.
Sometimes they tell us we'd better not get too cute with this one.
So…How Much Should You Offer?
This is the part where it would be really convenient if we could give you a formula.
List price minus 5%. Done.
Real estate doesn't work that way.
There isn't a universal rule that says you should always offer under asking, always ask for closing costs, or always start low so you have room to negotiate.
Before we write an offer, we're looking at things like:
What do comparable sales tell us about the value?
How long has the home been listed?
What's happened with the price?
What does the MLS history tell us?
Is there competition?
What's happening in this particular area and price range?
Are there terms that could make our offer more attractive?
And then there's one question we think buyers sometimes forget to ask themselves:
How disappointed would you be if you lost this house?
Because negotiating aggressively on a house you'd be perfectly happy to lose is one thing.
Playing chicken over a few thousand dollars on the house is another.
Our Goal Isn't to “Win” the Negotiation
Our goal is to help you make a good decision.
Sometimes we'll tell you:
“Yep. We think there's room to push here.”
Sometimes it's:
“You can absolutely offer that, but there's a real chance they'll say no.”
And sometimes:
“We wouldn't get too cute with this one.”
At the end of the day, you're the one making the decision.
Our job is to dig into the information, explain what we're seeing, talk through the risks and options with you, and help you make an offer you feel good about.
Because a successful negotiation isn't necessarily the one where you got the biggest discount.
It's the one where you ended up with terms you're comfortable with on a home you're happy to own.
Thinking About Making an Offer?
Whether you've already found a house you love or you're just trying to understand what buying might look like, we're happy to talk it through with you.
You don't need to have everything figured out before you call us.
No pressure. No sales pitch. Just straightforward advice from two sisters who do this every day.
LET'S TALK REAL ESTATE →