If you are selling your home you’ll want to get the best price you can and the smoothest possible sale. Your buyer will be aiming for similar terms. The trouble is the figures and terms often don’t tally and that’s where the fine art of negotiation comes in.

And it really is an art, best honed by years of experience. When I began my career with Savills in 2005, London was well and truly on the up. It had emerged as a global city and for the next two years growth was exponential in terms of house prices, pace and the sheer scale of demand. Then the negotiator’s skill was in handling the speed of the market and the fierce heat of competition.

Immediately after the financial crash in 2008 it was a different story. Buyers began to look for opportunities to chip away at prices, gazundering was commonplace, and this is when I learned the true importance of preparing both the property and client for the sale.

In a competitive market, buyers will often overlook a patch of damp, say, or some missing paperwork, accepting a degree of a risk in order not to miss out. Now, though nothing like the days of the credit crunch, the market is nevertheless price sensitive and sellers should make sure they limit any excuse for a low offer or a renegotiation…or worse still, a withdrawal. 

So, gather together your certificates and guarantees, fix the gutter and alert your agent of potential downsides or oversights, whether to do with the house or the neighbourhood. If your agent is upfront with buyers on viewings, those possible niggles are less likely to manifest as serious concerns. Being transparent from the start makes it clear that any potential negatives have already been accounted for in the price.

Be open with your agent about your priorities. In the current market, an important part of the art of negotiation is knowing what you are prepared to give up as well as defining the things you are not prepared to compromise on.

Finally, an agent who’s able to analyse past sales in an area, knowing what’s sold, when and for how much will be well-placed to put any offer into its proper context. Negotiation then, is definitely an art but maybe just a little bit of science too.

Voices of Experience

'The fine art of negotiation' is part of Voices of Experience, a series of blogs inspired by the new Savills marketing campaign. In this series some of our most experienced agents share what they’ve learned about the property market over the decades.