Negotiation Skills Company, Inc.
 
Negotiation Skills Company, Inc.

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Property Negotiation

From: Banker, Australia

Question: I'm writing a thesis on Property Negotiation and was wondering if you would be able to point me to some sources on this specific topic and on Negotiation in general.

Im also after any relevant statistics, studies or case studies in the area of Negotiation and specifically property negotiation.

I will be completing this in the next week so if you can help as soon as possible i would be much obliged.

Response: Having spent twelve years of my professional life in property negotiation, I have a reasonably detailed sense of some of the issues involved. As a consequence, answering a single, very general question is a daunting challenge. What follows are some very general hints.

A thesis about property negotiation may best be researched by interviewing people involved in the property business: owners of commercial property, people/companies who lease space in commercial property, real estate agents (people who bring buyer & seller together), residential landlords, attorneys who represent buyers & sellers, attorneys representing banks or other organizations that lend money for the purchase of property, suppliers of goods and services to the property business: building contractors, architects, plumbers, electricians, ... the list is endless.

Since you work for a bank, if you are part of the division that focuses on property, clearly your colleagues should be sources of informatin. If you work in another section, then this may be a good opportunity to interview folks who deal with property as money lenders, portfolio managers, work-out officers, etc.

Since you do not spell out whether your thesis is focusing on the purchase & sale of property, lease negotiations, or property construction & maintenance issues, it is hard to suggest specific sources of information that go straight to those points. However, the very general nature of the question you present is actually good news; there are certain general rules that apply more or less universally:

1. In a market economy a fair price is what a willing seller will accept from a willing buyer and what a willing buyer will pay a willing seller.

2. As in all negotiation, success depends on responding to the interests of the parties. Not WHAT do they want, but WHY do they want it?

You may want to read books like GETTING TO YES by Roger Fisher & William Ury, GETTING PAST NO by William Ury, and THE ART AND SCIENCE OF NEGOTIATION by Howard Raiffa. You may want to read back numbers of THE NEGOTIATION JOURNAL published by Harvard University's Program on Negotiation.

Most importantly, the issue in property negotiation, as well as all other uses of the negotiation process depends on good preparation. Having to complete a thesis in a week makes good preparation difficult. I wish you luck.

Good luck and good negotiating, Steve.

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