If you prefer buying real estate without an agent (who will watch your back every step of the way at no cost to you), you may wish to consider these real estate negotiation strategies to help you land the best deal:

– offer higher earnest money over and above the typical 1% of sales price; as long as you don’t plan to breach the purchase contract rules, the earnest money is just going toward your total down payment anyway.

– let seller choose the title/escrow company; it could create the illusion of seller controlling the deal but in reality most people couldn’t name a title/escrow company off the top of their head.

– be flexible on the closing date, if possible; let them know you can move closing forward (check with your lender to be sure they can make good on the desire to close sooner) or backward to suit their schedule.

– offer to allow seller to rent home back from you for a few days to help them move to their next home; moving is very stressful but this will give seller so much peace of mind and you will even make a few dollars.

– ask seller to buy you a home warranty – or to leave some item in home with the sale – that you are comfortable negotiating away later; meaning you didn’t really want this anyway but seller thinks they scored a win.

– ask for slightly more closing assistance to be paid by seller than you actually need or can use (if you are asking for any financial help from seller); if you only need 2% help, ask for 2.5% and negotiate it away.

– give seller ample time to respond; it is customary to give 48 hours for review of your offer but I can’t tell you how many times I get an offer at 7pm and buyer expects a response from seller by noon the following day.

Notice property price is not mentioned here. Remember, when buying and selling real estate, it is an often emotional process that can cause otherwise rational people to behave irrationally and out of character.