People pleaser

I am not a sales person nor do I like to negotiate. At all. My mom was very good at it. If there was a new car to be bought in our family, my mom did the negotiating. My dad would just sit back and let her at it. I recall one car sales lot visit with my step sister. She was 19 or 20, had a full time job and wanted to buy a car, so she took my parents. My mom haggled with the salesman and finally the salesman looked over at my dad and said "what do you feed her? nails?!". I'll never forget that, haha.

Me, I can't stand to negotiate or ask for anything extra. I won't even offer someone a lower price at a garage sale. There have been a few times I was buying something used, like on Craigslist that I might offer a bit less, but that would be the extent of it. If they countered with something else, I'd take it and be done. I'm a agreeable type of personality. I don't like conflict and I don't like to come across as I'm being unreasonable or mean, etc. Just not in my nature. It literally makes me sick to my stomach to haggle over price. Some people are great at it.

We probably wouldn't have offered the owner of this house we are in as much as we ended up getting below his asking price. The only reason we did is because his sale fell through (we sorta kinda new the guy through a friend) and he had told us what they have offered him ($8,000 less than asking) and he had called to see if we were still looking. So, DH told him we'd offer same as he took from other guy. If that had not happened and we were just looking at on offer (without that previous history) we probably would have offered like $4k less, but more than likely full price. So, with the $8,000 they took off their asking price we sure as heck did not have it in us to then use all the inspection piddly stuff and then come back and ask them to pay to fix. I guess we are different than a lot of people in that regard. Now if the inspection had shown something serious or major, sure then we would have had to renegotiate. But there was nothing major, nothing broken, nothing that didn't work as it should.  It was just very minor stuff due to normal life span of things along with some general regular maintenance type stuff.

I don't take personal an inspection. They are paid to do that. What I do take personal is being asked to be even more accommodating than I already agreed to and expected to spend more of my money.

When the offer came in on our house it came with asking for $4,000 allowance our of our proceeds. I thought about counter offering like $2000, but again, I didn't want to come across as difficult to deal with, or have to negotiate, so I accepted the offer. Honestly, at the time the thought of doing a counter offer instantly made my stomach clench up. I don't want or like to feel like that so I always agree to what anyone ever asks of me.

But, at some point even us easy going folks have to draw the line. I'm not going to just keep giving and giving, just so that I don't come across as a hard to deal with person. Of course, that is how I'm being made to feel by our agent. "well, if you don't agree to this you might lose the sale and I don't want to lose the sale". Well, of course he doesn't. But we already did our part and our due diligence in pre-disclosing the issue with the 3 cracks in siding and the cracked concrete. We already did our part with agreeing to give the buyer the $4,000 allowance. We're done giving and negotiating anymore. And if that makes us hard to work with and unreasonable, so be it, I guess. It actually feels kinda of good to finally not just always be so agreeable and accommodating to anything anyone ever asks of me. I doubt I'll make a habit of it (too much stress getting to that point). DH is the same way - just constantly tries to please everyone and give give give. Example: day before yesterday (after the tape and texture guy finally did a full days work) he came home telling me how terribly slow the guy was, that he even talked really slow, like maybe a few brain cells missing. Then yesterday he comes home and sees his Teeter inversion table in the corner of the room. (the thing we paid $300 for that he rarely uses anymore) and asks me how much we paid. Then he said he was just wondering because the tape and texture guy has major back problems and his doctor recommended a table (one that costs $75) but he doesn't even have the money for that. DH is thinking about just giving him ours for free. Because DH loves to do things for people and loves to have them like him, but as soon as he's trying to ask for something or expect something from someone (like getting the work done we've contracted and are paying for) he's the biggest jerk, to them. We're expected to give and give and be so accommodating, but the minute we expect something we're wrong for asking or expecting. I don't get it.

These issues that the buyer needs (siding) and wants (the rest of his list) fixed are only an issue (probably) with his VA financing. These 3 cracks are in photos and listed in the inspection report we had from 2 years ago. It was not an issue with FHA, nor would it be with conventional financing. It is not my responsibility to pay even more due to the financing he is using, especially when we disclosed it with the listing. If he wants this house he certainly has the option of paying for the fixes he wants, himself.

I've always wished I had more of a personality like my mom. or other people I know who don't have problems dealing and negotiating. I'm sure those that have that kind of personality don't understand people like me. (and probably don't realize how literally sick inside it makes me). What's the big deal? LOL. I know I would have gotten a lot farther in a career if I had been the type of person that doesn't mind conflict. I tried being a supervisor for a year and a half. I absolutely hated it. Had major stomach problems the whole time. I'm just an introvert with a people pleasing personality. But not today, haha.