Over my years in real estate, some deals have stayed with me. Helping a client buy a property in North York this time was one of them.
After nearly four hours of back-and-forth negotiation, we bought for $1.61 million — $118,800 (about 6.87%) below the $1,728,800 list price — and the seller also agreed to replace the air conditioner with a unit meeting the standard both sides agreed on.
I allowed myself a little pride over this one. Sitting across the table was an experienced listing agent who had worked the area for many years. Winning room from a colleague who knows both the market and negotiation that well is not easy.
1. First, study the house and the market inside out
The property is in North York’s Willowdale East community, close to Yonge Street and the subway, with easy transit. According to the school information available at the time, the elementary school was Hollywood Public School and the high school Earl Haig Secondary School — both schools my client cared a lot about.
The lot is about 25 by 120 feet, with a newly rebuilt house of about 2,000 square feet facing north, listed at $1,728,800.
The house met many of my client’s wishes. But liking it is one thing; whether the price was reasonable had to be studied carefully.
I knew the listing agent had done business in this area for a long time and knew the local market and its sales inside out. To negotiate price with him, the courage to bargain was nowhere near enough — I needed evidence in hand.
Building on what I already knew, I studied Willowdale East carefully again, pulled the relevant sales records from the past two years, and compared lot size, age, floor area, finishes and sale price item by item.
I also looked into the zoning rules, the relevant hearing records, building costs, and the brands, standards and market prices of the appliances in the house.
This preparation may look tedious, but once you are at the table, it can decide whether you can answer the other side’s point.
2. On their home turf, keep your own pace
The negotiation took place at the listing agent’s office.
As we walked in, the walls were covered with photos of luxury homes he had sold. Sitting behind his desk, he used a laser pointer to show which homes had sold for what.
A scene like that puts some pressure on you. His experience and results are right there, and in his own familiar setting it is easy for the negotiation to follow his rhythm.
I reminded myself: respect his experience, but there is no need to give ground because of it. My job was to settle my client’s terms clearly and win what should be won.
When we submitted the first offer, I raised a specific issue first: the listing stated that a $500 marketing fee would be deducted from the co-operating commission.
I made it clear that I did not agree to this deduction, and explained why: marketing the listing is the listing agent’s job, the buyer’s agent also bears their own service costs, and fee arrangements should be agreed upfront, not glossed over.
After some discussion, he accepted my request.
$500 doesn’t decide the sale of a house, but this exchange let me settle my pace and showed him that I would take every term seriously.
At one point I noticed chocolates on the desk and asked if I could have one. He said yes, and the mood eased a little. You can hold your position in a negotiation and still talk naturally — there is no need to stay tense the whole time.
3. He compared it with a $1.95-million house
The truly decisive round came when we discussed comparable properties.
The listing agent mentioned a house diagonally across the street that he had just sold for $1.95 million. His argument was direct: the two houses are similar, the one across the street just has a lot 5 feet wider, and this one is asking only about $1.73 million — already very reasonable.
Without preparation, that comparison is quite convincing: so close by, the lot only slightly different, yet the price over $200,000 apart — there seems to be little room to negotiate.
But I had studied that property beforehand.
The difference between the two houses was not just the lot width. Zoning rules, hearing records, building costs and interior finishes all had to be compared together.
I explained these differences one by one and set out the basis for my estimates. According to my analysis at the time, the difference in the relevant costs alone came close to $300,000.
Of course, cost cannot directly stand in for market value, but it was enough to show that “a lot 5 feet narrower” could not sum up all the differences between the two houses — let alone prove that this house’s list price was already cheap.
This round was the key turning point of the whole negotiation.
We began to talk about specific differences and the basis for the price, instead of just repeating the numbers each side wanted. The research and comparisons done beforehand really paid off here.
4. The last $6,000: keep pushing or not?
By the end, the two sides were still $6,000 apart.
At this stage, the easiest thought is: you’re buying a house for well over a million dollars — what’s a few thousand more?
But as the buyer’s agent, I still had to judge whether there was room to win that difference, and whether my client was willing to accept walking away without a deal.
Based on our earlier conversations, I thought we could hold firm one more time. After talking it over with my client, we began packing up, ready to end the negotiation.
Then I took the listing agent aside and clearly stated our position: if this price was acceptable, we would go ahead and complete the deal; if not, we were prepared to leave.
A move like this only works if you have seriously discussed the price and are willing to accept that the deal may fall through. Otherwise, the other side only needs to hold out a little longer, and your so-called bottom line loses its meaning.
Seeing that we were ready to leave, he asked us to wait a moment and went back to talk to the sellers.
In the end, the two sides agreed at $1.61 million, with the agreement to replace the air conditioner confirmed as well.
At that moment I was genuinely happy. Nearly four hours of negotiation had finally won my client a result she was satisfied with.
5. What made me happier than the price cut: my client’s trust
My client was very savvy herself and knew the local market well.
She lived nearby at the time and followed new listings closely. She had seen many homes in person and had her own views on location, condition and price, so she expected a lot from her agent.
We worked together for about two weeks before buying this house. Looking back, what made our work together possible was not only this negotiation, but also the trust built during an earlier showing.
The first time I showed her homes, she mentioned that she had liked another property at an open house and wanted to make an offer.
When a client already wants to buy, that is of course a chance for an agent to move a deal forward. But after seeing that house, I still told her my concerns one by one.
One of them was that the house directly faced a church.
She said she didn’t mind. I told her: if you don’t mind, that is your personal choice; but if you are also thinking about investment and resale, you need to consider whether future buyers might see it differently.
A church doesn’t make a house bad in itself. What matters is whether the surroundings suit how she would use it, and whether she accepts that buyer preferences may differ when she sells in the future. Taking other factors into account too, I felt that property didn’t fit her investment goals, and told her honestly why.
In the end she took my advice.
I think it was these small, concrete things that gradually convinced her: I would seriously judge whether a house was worth buying for her, and I was willing to raise issues that could affect her decision even when she had already fallen for a house.
6. The confidence to negotiate comes from preparation and judgement
After the deal, I also looked up this listing agent’s record of selling homes 0 to 5 years old in the area from 2013 up to the time of this transaction.
Using the comparison range I found and used at the time, there were 19 transactions, with an average negotiated discount of about $80,600, or about 3.38%; his largest previous discount was about $108,000. The $118,800 we won this time gave me a real sense of accomplishment.
Of course, the list price is not the same as market value, and the size of a discount alone can’t tell you whether a deal was a good one. In the end, it comes down to whether the price matches the property and whether it meets the client’s needs.
This experience made me believe even more that composure at the negotiating table comes from the homework done away from it.
Knowing the sales lets you judge whether the other side’s comparisons hold up; understanding how properties differ lets you negotiate the price with evidence; knowing your client’s goals and limits tells you when to keep pushing and when to stop.
Saving my client more than $110,000 is certainly something to be happy about. What made me happier was that, after fully understanding the house, the price and the terms, she bought a property she was happy with.
Congratulations to my client, and thank you for the trust you placed in me.
— Ming
