J. Scott - The Book on Negotiating Real Estate: Expert Strategies for Getting the Best Deals When Buying & Selling Investment Property

PRAISE FOR

THE BOOK ON NEGOTIATING REAL ESTATE

This is the only book youll need to learn the strategies and tactics necessary to ensure you get the BEST dealsand the MOST dealson your investment property, every time!

Joe Fairless, Author of Best Ever Apartment Syndication Book

J Scott, Carol Scott, and Mark Ferguson are three of the premier real estate investors in our industry. Their tips and tricks for negotiating great deals are priceless. Read this book and learn from the best.

Michael Blank, Multifamily Investor, Educator, and Author

Mark Ferguson and the Scotts offer tales from the trenches like no one else in the business, showing investors tips and tricks you could only pick up from years of success. If I had this book starting out, Id be light-years ahead of where Im at now. The Book on Negotiating Real Estate is the real deal, and will put you ahead of your, competition saving you money and time in the process.

Dave Van Horn, Author of Real Estate Note Investing

Another book by J Scott that has had a huge positive impact on my investment business! This book provides clear step-by-step, tactical, and practical systems for negotiating within the real estate industry. J Scott has proven over and over again that he is a master of his craft and his love for sharing with the investor community changes lives for the better, especially mine.

Tarl Yarber, CEO of Fixated Real Estate

Required reading for all real estate investors! The most important thing in real estate investing is buying and selling properties at prices that will help you lock in a profitthis book will teach you how to do that.

Jordan Thibodeau, Founder of The Silicon Valley Investors Club

It is refreshing to finally have a blueprint on negotiating real estate from professionals who are out there doing it! J, Mark, and Carol are able to convey their knowledge and experience with ease, and readers will be delighted with the actionable content contained within these pages.

Jake Stenziano and Gino Barbaro, Founders of Jake & Gino and authors of Wheelbarrow Profits

This publication is protected under the U.S. Copyright Act of 1976 and all other applicable international, federal, state, and local laws, and all rights are reserved, including resale rights: You are not allowed to reproduce, transmit, or sell this book in part or in full without the written permission of the publisher.

Limit of Liability: Please note that much of this publication is based on personal experience and anecdotal evidence. Although the author and publisher have made every reasonable attempt to achieve complete accuracy of the content in this book, they make no representations or warranties with respect to the accuracy or completeness of the contents of this book and specifically disclaim any implied warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose. Your particular circumstances may not be suited to the examples illustrated in this book; in fact, they likely will not be. You should use the information in this book at your own risk. Nothing in this book is intended to replace common sense or legal, accounting, or professional advice, and it is meant only to inform.

Any trademarks, service marks, product names, and named features are assumed to be the property of their respective owners and are used only for reference. No endorsement is implied when we use one of these terms.

The Book on Negotiating Real Estate

J Scott, Mark Ferguson, Carol Scott

Published by BiggerPockets Publishing LLC, Denver, CO

Copyright 2019 by J Scott

All Rights Reserved.

Publishers Cataloging-in-Publication data

Names: Scott, J, 1971-, author. | Ferguson, Mark, 1979-, author. | Scott, Carol, 1971-, author.

Title: The Book on negotiating real estate : expert strategies for getting the best deals when buying investment properties / J. Scott, Mark Ferguson, and Carol Scott.

Description: Denver, CO: BiggerPockets Publishing, 2019.

Identifiers: ISBN 978-1-947200-06-7 (pbk.) | 978-1-947200-07-4 (ebook) | LCCN 2018942992

Subjects: LCSH Real estate investment--United States. | Personal finance. | BISAC BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Real Estate / General | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Real Estate / Buying Selling Homes | BUSINESS & ECONOMICS / Negotiating

Classification: LCC HD1382.5 .S39 2018 | DDC 332.63/24--dc23

Second Edition

Published in the United States of America

10 9 8 7 6 5 4 3 2 1

This book is dedicated to the investors and real estate professionals everywhere who spend their days working tirelessly to help solve other peoples problems.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

PREFACE

In the summer of 2015, I was asked to give a presentation at a large real estate meetup in New York City, run by my good friend, Darren Sager. I happily acceptedmy kids had never been to NYC, my wife loves the city, and we figured wed make a vacation out of it.

A few days before the presentation, I still hadnt decided what Id talk about. To help generate some ideas, I asked Darren to send an email to his group, asking if there were any topics in particular theyd be interested in hearing about.

The first response I received was, Id love to learn how to be a better negotiator.

Why hadnt I thought of that? I had spent more than a dozen years working for some of the biggest companies in the world doing large scale negotiations and this was a topic I knew a good bit about; it was also a topic that was highly relevant to real estate investing. But, other than an article here or there, I had spent a tremendously small amount of time writing about and discussing negotiation.

So, I put together a presentation I called, Ten Things You Can Do Today to Become a Better Real Estate Negotiator.

The goal of that presentation was to provide a short list of basic negotiating strategies that, in about two hours, could turn a novice negotiator into someone who was better than 95 percent of the general public. Given how little the average person knows about negotiating and how little time they spend practicing their negotiating skills, I knew that by implementing some very basic tips, almost anyone could considerably improve their ability to negotiate.

I created my presentation on the train ride up to the cityI have a bad habit of waiting until the last minute for these thingsand just sort of winged it to the group of over 200 investors who had packed the WeWork coworking space where the meeting was being held.

The response was completely unexpected. For several days after the presentation, I received email after email thanking me for delving into a topic that in our business is so important, but is often overlooked or minimized. Even my last-minute PowerPoint slides and unrehearsed talking points apparently didnt detract from the value of the presentation.

In fact, among the responses were several investors who suggested that I write a book on how to negotiate real estate. So I decided to do just that. But this was a topic that was so broad that I didnt feel I could tackle it myself. After following the writing and experiences of my investing colleague, Mark Ferguson, for several years, I knew that I wanted him to help me with the book. I also enlisted the help of my wife, Carol Scott the one person I know who can consistently out-negotiate me.