Sell High: How Do I Negotiate the Best Deal?

Welcome to SellHigh, the ultimate podcast series for landlords looking to maximize their property's potential and achieve top dollar sales.

Hi, I'm James Nelson, your host and I'm here to help you unlock your property's full potential.

And I'm Anlis Callez, your moderator, guiding you through each insightful episode. Get expert insights on market timing, broker selection, property valuation, marketing, negotiation and closing, all in one podcast. Tune in to the Sell High series and unlock the secrets to top dollar sales.

Welcome everyone to episode five of the Sell High series on how do I negotiate the best deal? I'm your host, James Nelson. I'm principal and head of Tri State Investment Sales here at Avis and Young. And with me is Analise Callez, who is founder of Brandora.

Hi, James. It's always a pleasure to be here for our mini series called Sell High, which is geared towards helping owners sell their properties for the highest price. We now discuss when is the right time to sell, how to find the right broker, how to determine your property's value and the right marketing process. Today we're continuing our Sell High series with one of the most important steps of the sale. How do I negotiate the best deal? Before we dive in, James, could you share an interesting story with our audience about either a bidding process or gone wrong or in the contrary, one that went very well.

Certainly one of our toughest assignments and one that looked like it was a failed process. We were ultimately able to approach it with a strategy that I think had not been done before. We did end up submitting this one for the Real Estate Board deal of the year. Did not win. So after. So maybe they didn't think this was the most ingenious execution. But I think there's definitely lessons here for the audience, which is we had a portfolio of a dozen, dozen buildings on the Upper east side with really two warring sides of a family. But they, it kind of splintered off and there was four different groups that have four different attorneys and they could not agree on what day of the week it was. And so we would bring one offer after another and everybody had to have their say and the attorneys would get involved. And we went through, you know, we'd run our process, we brought, you know, over 150, 200 groups through. We had offers, we'd issue contracts and it was a technical property portfolio because it wasn't just the apartments, but there was issues about, you know, the status of the units, the paperwork, the. Some of the properties were owned as part of corporations. It was complicated, but we would issue contracts and then every attorney from the seller's side would feel like they needed to weigh in and weeks would go by and ultimately these deals would get over, negotiated and, and ultimately the buyers would just walk away and just say, look, this is not what I signed on for. So this goes on for over a year and. But the sellers still needed to sell. I mean, the properties, this was in an estate, almost half the units were vacant, they were in disrepair. And you know, talking to the sellers, I said, look, we've lost all credibility in the marketplace. No one believes that we're actually going to transact and sell. I said, we have to try something different. That's going to really demonstrate the buyers that we're serious and we're going to transact. So I called up my friends at 10x and I said, we're going to put this on an auction platform and we're going to do this and we're going to agree to a bid time frame where we're going to put the property out there, we're going to bring the buyers together and then we're going to have a bid deadline where buyers are going to have to submit proof of funds and be ready to transact. That alone is not, I mean, certainly working with auction platforms, I mean, that alone was not, I think, the ingenuity or how we were able to get this done. But what we, I think the real key to this was to get the seller's attorneys to agree to a contract up front. Okay. And we had an initial round of bidding and after the offers came in, we selected the finalists and we gave those finalists two weeks to have their attorneys review the contract. They could all make collective changes to the comments. So we had comments coming in from a half a dozen or so different attorneys and then we agreed on which comments we would accept for this contract. And that became the final contract that the buyers would bid on for the final thing. And at that point all the sellers attorneys had signed off. This is. It ran a process and ultimately closed the deal. So that was one that we're really proud of because especially, I mean, brokers, we spec our time, right? We're not like attorneys who get paid by the hour. We get paid based on success. So the fact that we had spent a year on this could not get our clients on board to transact, was really proud that we were able to stick through it and figure out a process that worked for everybody so everyone could feel like they were having a say. But in the moment when you had to create that Leverage and get the bidding right to have buyers step up and sign. We were able to accomplish that by using that auction platform.

Great story. That sounds both stressful and exciting.

Yes.

And you've been a real estate broker and investor for the last 25 years, so you're a master negotiator. Is this step the negotiating, you know, negotiating the best deal? Is that your favorite portion of selling?

I love the ingenuity and I think that this is probably an overused term of a win win negotiation. But I don't think of, although, you know, I sit on the seller's side of the equation. Right. We represent owners to sell their properties. We just did our last episode on how to maximize value. But I think also clearly there's two sides of the transaction. You have a seller and a buyer.

Right.

So everybody has to feel happy about the transaction, feel good about it. Not everybody's going to get everything they want. So it's finding that middle ground. And I think part of the creativity is sometimes it's not just price.

Right.

That makes the deal. I mean, certainly we're very interested in the, you know, the certainty of close. Who's the buyer you're dealing with, but also the terms. And I think some of the negotiations that I'm most proud of, and I think we did talk about this on one of our previous episodes where in this one we did win the rebny deal of the year board was for the three not for profits that we represented, two churches and a hospital. To get them to, we lined up a sequence of transactions where they could all close at the same time. Hospital could take over a church site, church moves to a new church location. We found the other church a new home. But the ingenuity of figuring out how to make that happen all at the same time, giving some time after the close for the seller to stay in place until they renovated and built their new home. And so I like that part of the negotiation is, you know, figuring out a way to make a deal work. And it's not just about price, you know, it's also terms. And if I'm not mistaken, Harry Helmsley, who is one of these prolific New York investors, I never had the, you know, chance to meet him, but I just hearing from him, he always said, you know, your price might my terms. And I know also one of my former podcasts, you all should listen to the episode I did with Francis Greenberger, who I do, who remains a mentor of mine today. In fact, he was kind enough to write a review for our book but brilliant deal maker. And so that's definitely an episode to listen to and understand how creativity can really help in a negotiation.

Can you walk us through what a typical bidding process looks like?

So we talked last episode about the timeframe, really six months from start to finish, a week or two to get materials ready, six to eight weeks of active negotiations. But we didn't really talk about kind of how to bring something to a head. So what do I do when I have. Ideally, the whole idea of running that marketing process is so you don't end up in a negotiation with just a one on one negotiation. Because that can be really challenging when you're a seller. Ideally you want multiple horses in the race. To use an overused cliche, having multiple groups. So you can not only create a marketplace, but you have options on the table.

Right?

Because look, if I was paid a commission for every single contract that I sent out, I probably would have retired 10 years ago. Unfortunately, a lot of these deals, you know, they take left turns, right turns diagonally, and you don't know if a deal actually gets done until in our world, we're signing a contract with a hard deposit. You know, out of the 500 plus deals that we've closed, I can probably count on one hand of deals that didn't ultimately close. And usually that were for, you know, market conditions. It wasn't because the buyer ultimately, you know, couldn't perform. But that being said, like, how do you go from that process of having multiple offers to making sure that you get them to sign? And the key, Annalise, is really making sure that you keep those bidders in competition with each other until the seller finally counter signs that contract.

Right.

And actually takes that deposit. Because in the residential world, typically what they do is they say, I accept your offer. So, okay, you know, I'm selling my apartment. And you say, james, I'd like to buy it. We accept the offer. We let everybody know, offer accepted. We're only accepting for backups. Like all we're doing is then. And that's the norm. So I get it. But all that's doing is taking the momentum out of the sales process. Because then you have the control as the buyer, because you have control of the deal. You have the accepted offer, the properties off the market, right? And now if you don't perform now that broker has to go back to the marketplace and, and say, oh, it didn't work out. I mean, that then you're not negotiating from a point of strength, you're negotiating from a point of weakness. So the idea is, and this can be brutal on buyers, they don't like it. But. And this is really market dependent. You can get away with this in New York. Can you get away with this in a, you know, a tertiary market? Probably not. But in New York, we say, look, you know, we've, we've taken bids, so we, we have a bid deadline. And then in some situations where it's really competitive, we say, okay, we're going to issue multiple contracts and we're going to send a draft contract. It's going to have a blank price, and it's going to have a blank deposit and closing period. We want you, as the final round of comments or the final process in this bid, to return this contract with your best and final price, the highest deposit, the tightest close that you can offer, and then show us comments that you are going to put on this contract. Now, if I have that from you and three other bidders now, I'm not just weighing who's giving the highest offer. Can anyone can say, oh, I'll pay you more money. Okay, on what terms? And are you ready to actually step up and sign? But if I see that I've got three or four buyers who have negotiated contracts and I know not only the price they're willing to pay, but the terms.

Right.

And what they're asking for in a contract, what that does is it eliminates the entire negotiation process. If I get into a one on one negotiation where I'm, you know, we're going back and forth on a contract, that can take weeks, if not months.

Right.

And so again, this is market specific. In New York, that would be a typical New York process where, yes, there could be multiple contracts and yes, with full disclosure. I'm not doing this, like, behind your back. I'm telling you, Annalise, you're not going to like this, but we're inviting you and, you know, two, three other buyers to mark up a contract, then again, we are keeping the maximum leverage. Now, what happens in a secondary or a tertiary market? There you don't have the same buyer demand. So buyers are going to say, okay, I'm willing to pay your price, but I need 60 days of due diligence. I'm going to put up a good faith deposit of maybe 25 grand, maybe it's 100 grand, and then I'm going to do my diligence. In 60 days, I'm going to tell you whether or not I'm going to go ahead with the purchase. But I could also say I'm going to walk away or I need to lower the price. Like what's happened? If you've given that buyer 60 days to do their diligence and they say, thanks, but I'm not interested, then again, you got to go back to the market in a position of weakness. So again, that's the norm. So it is market dependent on how you run the process. But in the best world, if you're a seller, it's having those multiple options. It's really making sure that you have that leverage up until that last point where you're ready to countersign that contract to make sure that you have, you know, the right price, but also the right terms.

So can you tell me and our audience a bit more about these terms? When it comes to qualifying offers, what are the key factors that you considered beyond just the price? What are the terms? What are the best terms?

Yes, it's a great question. And you know, if there's a norm, a 10% deposit is always, you know, meaningful, right? As far as, and for a larger transaction, if we're Talking about a 50 or $100 million deal, maybe that deposit becomes a 5% deposit, but it's meaningful money and it's importantly, it's non refundable, meaning that when a seller sells a property on an as is, where is basis, what that really means once the contract gets negotiated is I have to deliver to you free and clear title, meaning that it's not encumbered by any mortgages or partners, but you're taking the property as is, meaning the as is condition environmental. You want to do that, you do that before contract, right? Before contract signing. But we're not making any contingencies. Now. There's some nuances that we could get into. If there's fines on the property, we might say, okay, I'll take it with the, you know, the issues of the property, I'll, I'll clean those up, but you have to pay the fines. Of course there's going to be provisions with what happens if you sign a contract and there's a fire or some, you know, you know, unforeseen occurrence to the property, natural disaster in between. I mean, those are, you know, certainly caveats, but important ones. But you know, the terms if you're selling property is, you know, you want to make as few if no representations as possible. Right. So when you sell a property, again, the, the legal definition is that as is where is meaning the way the property stands today. And I think where a lot of buyers, especially if they have knowledgeable attorneys they're trying to get representation. So they'll try to say, okay, you're selling me, and this comes up a lot in New York. You're selling me this 50 unit apartment building and you're telling me that 40 of the units are fair market. So I want you to represent that those 40 units are actually fair market. So what does that mean post closing? What happens if a tenant comes back and says, hey, I'm not fair market. I want a rent regulated lease, I want a roll back the lease. If you, the seller, give that representation at their fair market, that's the buyer's way to come back to you after the fact and say, you know, look, you gotta, you know, you gotta make good on this. And so that's why when we talk about as is where is, what we're really talking about is getting rid of representations. Because, you know, for those of you listening to this, I'm sure when you sell property, when you buy, yes, you want to try to get representations, you want to try to, you know, have the seller stand behind whatever it is. But again, and this can be certainly market driven, right? But in a New York or strong marketplace, it really is that buyer beware. So you're going to do your diligence upfront. And as a seller, you don't have to want to worry about after the fact, a buyer coming back to you saying, hey, you need to make good on this. So when you sell, you want to move on and not have to worry about any issues at the property.

And so in the contract process, what are some common pitfalls sellers should be aware of?

Again, we just talked about the representations, but there's also nuances. Mortgage, recording, tax. I mean, this is getting very specific about how you deal with any tax savings. Having, and we talk about this in our book very early on about having the right team of specialists. So I talk about when you're selling a property and you're bringing on an attorney, you don't want the family's attorney who does general practice and does, you know, trust in estates. You want an attorney who's a transactional real estate attorney who understands the customs of the market where you're in.

Right.

That means if you're selling multifamily in New York, you need a transactional real estate attorney who understands all the nuance of properties and what the buyer's going to ask for, but also know how to negotiate so you're not taking on that risk after the fact.

And speaking of negotiating, with your extensive experience, how has your negotiation approach Evolved over the years. Years.

I will say that early on in my career, I used to get really worked up when deals did not go my way. And I think I said earlier that sending out a contract doesn't you. You're only on, you know, first base. You're only starting the process. And these deals are going to turns left, right? And I, you know, I would like to believe the majority buyer sellers out there are good people, but you do certainly deal with people who are not scrupulous. And they, you know, they'll create issues. They'll do things that are not right. And, you know, you can either get really worked up and, you know, get angry and try to retaliate or whatever it is. And I think part of it is just understanding that, look, that is the business that unfortunately, there are people like that out there who are not going to do the right thing. So you try to obviously protect your client against that. You try to, you know, and you talk about qualifying. We talked a little bit about that. And making sure that someone, when you're selling to someone, have they transacted in your market references, proof of funds, like, all these things to really understand who you're dealing with is helpful. But you still, even you do all those things. And sometimes, you know, buyers. In fact, we were just discussing this morning a sales meeting. We have a buyer who's bought from us before, has always. Any offer they put out, they stand behind their great buyer. And, you know, we didn't even go to contract, but we're in active negotiations, and the buyer just says, you know, James, I'm sorry, but we're not at this price anymore. You know, again, early on in my career, I would have gotten really worked up. How could you do this to me? I. I vouched for you. I said you were a great buyer. Now you're making me look bad, and you're lowering your price. But, like, what good does that really do, right? I mean, it's like, okay, it doesn't change the situation that this buyer is now out of contention. I got to go find someone else. So I'm not happy about it. And, you know, maybe the next time this buyer makes an offer on one of my properties, I might tell the seller, hey, just, we have sold to this buyer before, but on the last transaction, they lowered the price during the negotiations. And just keep that in mind. But I think you got to just keep an even keel, and you don't want to get, you know, worked up for situations that are certainly beyond your control.

And so in your Opinion. What do you think is the most crucial skill for real estate professional to develop when negotiating the best deal?

I think the most important thing is you need to put. You're an advisor, right? So let's remember it is ultimately the client's decision, right? So as the broker, your job, and we've talked about, you know, that whole marketing process, but what you're doing is basically putting those options on the table, right? So I'm your advisor and I'm saying based on these, this is what I think we should do. But there's definitely times when the seller says, hey, James, I get it, I hear what you're saying. That's not what I want to do. Or look, we talk about buyers renegotiating prices. I've had sellers renegotiate. I've had sellers say, okay, we agree with your valuation. Let's move forward. We run a whole process, call for bids, and then after the fact, the seller says, james, we changed our mind. We want more money. That is awful. I mean, we now have to go back to every single one of our buyers to say, sorry, you know, you all just basically spun your wheels. Now, look, I mean, could there be something, maybe there's a major change in the market or a development of the property that all of a sudden there's additional potential? That's not what we're talking about. We're talking about someone changing their mind after the fact. But regardless, I mean, you're the broker, so, like, you have to. If the seller wants more money after the fact, like, you know, it's not your decision. You don't own the property. So ultimately you are letting the client make the decision. And sorry to go off on maybe a little bit of a tangent, but I think your question was, you know, what are things, you know, negotiating tips for brokers? And it's ultimately, you're an advisor, you're putting options on the table, but ultimately the client's calling the shots.

And does that happen a lot, that sellers are want to change their prices afterwards?

No, that's very rare.

And how do market conditions impact negotiation strategies?

I think they impact things a lot. And a big part of it is you call it managing expectations. You could also say it's not over promising and under delivering. Right. So again, we, the way that we do these recordings, we want this to be evergreen. We want this to be helpful for someone who's listening to this, you know, five, ten years from now. You know, the point is that right now in New York, for example, sales volume is at a Third of the ten year average. Right. So you know, we've had unprecedented increase in interest rates going up. A lot of sellers and buyers are on the sidelines now. We don't have to beat our sellers over the head with that information. They know it's a challenging marketplace. They read the papers. Right. But it's managing expectations to say, look, if this is going to take longer, this is going to be a tougher process, whatever it is, I think. And again, if this is advice to the brokers listening, that oftentimes, you know, you want to, you know, you're working so hard to try to get the business that you're over promising. And that just doesn't mean that it's not just price, it could be the actual process. If it's going to take a while because of, let's say you're out there looking for an end user, someone who's going to occupy the property as opposed to just investors buying income that's going to probably take double the amount of time. So we talked about the timeframe before of six to eight weeks. Like that's really for an investor, you know, selling to an end user could take double the amount of time. So I think really managing expectations and telling a seller up front, like what is this process going to look like? I think that's important. And I think you have to also know what's the seller's timetable? I mean, they might have a loan coming due where they say, James, that's great that you're telling me it might take six to seven months, but I have a loan coming due in three months. Okay. You know, we can certainly expedite the process, but then you might be giving something up on price to do that.

In your experience, what are some common mistakes that sellers make during the negotiations that can cost them money?

I think that sometimes when sellers want to be helpful and sometimes, usually as a broker, we want to be the intermediary.

Right.

And it's always good, I think, to have a broker in between because you know, when a seller is put on the spot and sometimes we have clients who say, I want to be at the property, I want to meet the buyer. And they think again, they want to be helpful. But then what's the buyer going to do? They're going to, they're going to try to get the seller to commit, hey, if we shake hands today, do I have your promise that we're going to do this deal? And I'm like, oh my gosh, we've got other buyers looking at this. Please Seller like this is why it's almost better they're not there. But a lot of sellers, again, they think they want to be helpful by stepping in and dealing directly with the buyer. But usually that can work to their disadvantage. Right, because you know, the buyer is going to see that as an opportunity to kind of win them over, but also maybe ask for some concessions in.

The process and to understand the buyer's motivation, how important is it and how can landlords uncover this information for buyers?

And this goes with your qualification question. You need to understand, you know, what is their motivation?

Right.

And the best one that we found is if someone has a 1031 exchange, so they've just sold a property, they're looking to reinvest in a defined time frame. If they want to defer the taxes, the capital gains, that happens within post close. You have 180 days to close on the your replacement property. But you have to identify up to three properties within the 45 day window after you close. So we love dealing with 1031 buyers because they're serious buyers, they have a reason to transact. If they don't, they're going to have to pay the capital gains. So they have an added incentive to invest. But they're also on a defied timeline. So that's important to know when they need to close. That doesn't mean that a buyer without a 1031 isn't real, but it's just important to ask questions. Are you planning to finance the transaction?

Right.

You know, again, here we are in 2024 where you know, maybe today you can only get 50, 60% loan to value on some properties where maybe five years ago was 70, 70, 75%. Right. So you want the buyer to be realistic so they're not making offers. You bring the offer to the seller, you send them a contract and they say, oh, sorry, we just spoke to our bank and we can't get the financing we need. So I think qualifying them to ask about, and sometimes brokers I think are afraid to ask this question. They just say, you know, the buyer says, oh, I'll pay you $10 million all cash. Like all cash just means no contingencies. Okay. In the contract. I get that. But why are you financing this? Okay, you know, do you have your financing lined up? What's the leverage? And then let's talk about the equity. I think a lot of the buyers that run around, I mean sometimes, you know, brokers new to the business might just think it's that one person who's responsible for all that money, but majority of investors, and we talk about the benefits of not just raising debt, but also equity in our book is understanding. Also, do you have partners in this transaction? Are they on board? You know, and that. That is really what I found. Sometimes when you issue that contract, the attorneys are going back and forth and why isn't the buyer signing? Like, what's the issue? What's the issue? And nine times out of 10, it's because they don't have their equity lined up. Like, the financing is pretty formulaic, right? Where you can call a couple quotes, you get a pretty good sense of what you can do. But, you know, especially today where it requires more equity to close deals, a lot of the times there's really two negotiations going on at the same time. The buyer is negotiating with you, the seller, but then they're turning around, they're negotiating with their JV equity, trying to make sure that they have their partner on board so they can sign together.

And so, James, what do you typically do when you're facing an impasse, where things are stuck, and how do you keep the negotiations going?

I think the important thing is this is not. When you're selling real estate and certainly multimillion dollar assets. I mean, this is not like selling used cars. And that if someone doesn't really want to buy it. And I think this is also tough sometimes for new brokers. Like, they just, you know, they want to try to force it and pressure someone into doing a deal. Like, if someone doesn't want to buy, they're not going to buy, right? So, like, that's. And sometimes I even find myself trying to, I don't say talk someone into it, but like, they say, oh, James, this really isn't for me. I don't like the location. I don't like, you know, whatever the tenant profile, you're not. There's certain things that you can't change, right? Obviously you can't change. I mean, you could talk about reasons why you think this location is good or changing, but, you know, the buyer ultimately has to take the risk. And if they're not really enthusiastic about it and you know, when a buyer really wants something and the cadence is right. Like, I'm not chasing that buyer. Sometimes when I have to chase the buyer, like, hey, what's the story? Are you interested in this? Do you want to make an offer?

Right.

The real cadence should be that buyer should be following up. Hey, James, I haven't heard from you yet. Did you get the counter from the seller? Like, I really like that. Now, there's some gamesmanship that happens as well. Sometimes of a buyer, especially of an exchange, they don't want to seem overly anxious because they don't want the seller to say, oh, I've got this 1031 buyer, I'm going to really hold out. So let's say I've got other options and I've got time and, you know, I don't have to do a 1031. I'm not going to just buy something just for the sake of deferring taxes. You know, you do have to. There's still some, like I said, some positioning that might exist. But at the end of the day, you're not talking someone into buying an asset. I mean, they really have to have a reason to do it. And a seller on the same hand, there has to be sellers motivation. We talk about this also in the book, which is one thing that I'm so surprised. A lot of brokers don't even ask a client when they're sitting down, why are you looking to sell? It's an okay question to ask. And buyers generally want to know as well, so they're not wasting their time.

And James, how do you advise clients on when to walk away from a deal versus when to compromise?

Yeah, that's a great question. You have to have your own risk tolerance as a buyer, and there's going to be issues that come up. I can. We can try to do the best job. We can to try to. We talk about doing the proper due diligence. We talked last episode about the good, the bad, the ugly. But there's going to be things that come up. And I think sometimes there are issues with properties that just, again, might not be for all buyers. There are some buyers who say, I'm willing to take the risk if there's an issue here. And other buyers say, look, this isn't what I want to sign on for. So I think understanding kind of the buyer's risk tolerance and what's involved I think is important because not every property is for every buyer.

Thank you, James. And this is our last question. In your book and podcast, you discussed Insider's Edge. How does this concept apply specifically to negotiations in high value real estate transactions?

Wow, that's another good one. Which is, I think, you know, the insider's Edge. This book was really written from the investors standpoint.

Right.

So we spent a lot of time on this show talking about how do you gain the insider's edge to investing.

Right.

And so a lot of that is just finding opportunities where you Know, we've been talking about this Sell High series about all the ways to maximize value. And so if you're a buyer and you're up against a seller's broker who's really good at implementing these strategies, you're going to be competing with the rest of the marketplace. That doesn't mean that you find a great piece of property and you're not going to do well by it if you take a long term view. But you know, if you can find that off market deal, if you can find that seller directly who is not properly advised, or the broker who's not doing the right job, that is part of the way to get the insider's edge to real estate investing. You find that opportunity, especially some that maybe someone doesn't, you know, maybe they don't understand the full potential. But you know, on the, on the sell side, you know, you can see a lot of what we're talking about is perfecting this process, right? So it's again, I think the insider's edge, this really, you know, speaks to the investor standpoint and I think a lot of this book is how to, you know, find great opportunities and to invest. But why are we doing this Sell High series? The most important thing, you found a great opportunity, you negotiated a great deal to complete that business plan and monetize. Unless if you're planning on refinancing and holding the property forever. If you look to sell, you want to make sure that you're doing it in the right way and you're maximizing, you spent all this time and effort and the risk to find this opportunity. You want to make sure that you complete that process by ultimately selling for the highest price. So that's what we're here to talk about.

Thank you so much for dropping so much knowledge today, James. You gave our listeners many great tips and strategies on negotiating the best deal deal and selling high. What do you want our audience to remember? What are the three takeaways from this episode?

There was a lot of takeaways, I'll try to remember and summarize these into three. But I think with negotiation we talked about, it first starts with having a broad pool of buyers, right? So that, that really teased into what we were talking about last time with exposing, getting a big buyer pool but then putting them in competition with each other up until that point when you're ready to counter sign. So it's creating that leverage. And, and part of that also is to making sure the final point, that you've done all the work up front to address all the issues. Because what you don't want is a failed campaign where you've brought all the buyers. You brought it to a head, you have the leverage, and there's surprises at the end. That never helps.

Thank you, James. What an insightful episode. As we discuss how to negotiate the best deal in our next episode, we will discuss how the contract and closing process work so you won't want to miss it. We'll also discuss discuss how to select an attorney, the type of documentation to provide for a sale, the best terms, and how to reap the most rewards from a sale. Thank you, James. And thank you all for listening to the Insider's Edge and the Sell High series. Until next time, maximize your property's potential and sell High.

Thank you again, Annalise. This has been wonderful. And thank you all for joining as well. You can go to james nelson.com that's where you can find the show notes for this episode. You can also sign up for our newsletter there. We basically pull all the information together, the white papers, the podcast that we're doing to put it all in one easy place. And look, if you like this episode, share it with a friend. I do this all the time, by the way. I listen to an episode that I like and I pass it along to a friend. You're doing them a favor and you're also helping us reach a broader audience. So we're really grateful for your listening and also sharing as well. Until next week, thank you again.

Maximize your property's potential. Sell High.

Sam.