Hello darkness, my old friend!

I am constantly asked what is the most important thing to remember when trying to get the best price for a property and the answer surprises many of my clients.

Once you have found your dream property and want to put in an offer there is a strange phenomena that affixes many a prospective purchaser. They understandably start to become paranoid that they are going to loose the property - and that is even before they have put in any offer. This manifests itself in many ways but generally it is a willingness to throw all sorts of daft money at the estate agent. Now don't get me wrong there are circumstances where you not only have to act quickly but you have to open up the bank vault and chuck loads of cash down the mouth of the seller. However in a lot of cases - especially if the property has been on the market for a while and you are the only person interested - it is not always the best thing to do. What should you do?

My advice - make the offer and go silent.

If you think that you are paranoid that you are going to miss out on the property - you should see the state of the seller! As a purchaser you need to remember that if the property has been on the market a while then the seller is going to be more worried that you as an interested party are going to walk away. What you need to do is play on that and one of the best ways to do that is the silent treatment. It then becomes a game of poker. If you can hold your nerve and get them to do the chasing then the tables are turned in your favour and you can start to control the negotiations.

And that my friends is "The Sound of Silence"