Mike Browning

Tag: Real Estate Negotiation

  • The Three People You Need

    The Three People You Need

    Finding the customer is only one of them.

    I was listening to something the other day that stuck with me, although I can’t remember who said it. To have a successful business, you only need three people:

    One to find the customers, one to take care of the customers, and one to keep the first two guys out of jail.

    Kind of said in jest, but pretty accurate if you think about it. It doesn’t actually have to be three different people, but there are three main functions. Sort of a three-legged stool.

    Sales/Marketing (find the customers), Management/Execution (take care of the customers), and Compliance (stay out of jail or court).

    They don’t have to be different people, and some of those jobs can be handled by outside professionals. But if you’re dealing with a company that overemphasizes one or ignores another, you’re asking for trouble.

    As a broker, I work on commission. Finding clients is the first step to that, but if I just tell people what I think they want to hear to get them in the door, I’ve got problems.

    If I tell you your property is worth $2M when it’s probably worth $700K just to get you to sign a listing, at the very least I’m going to have a hard time executing.

    And I’ve started the relationship by telling you something I didn’t believe myself.

    But people do similar things every day. It matters who you do business with.

    I can tell you how I try to operate, but you’re probably better off hearing it from people who’ve actually done business with me.

    “I’ve worked with Mike for over 20 years on land and lot deals. He’s a stand-up, trustworthy guy who is very knowledgeable about his market. He has strong relationships with landowners and a deep network in land development.

    He’s always willing to help with anything we need during due diligence, and he does a great job working with sellers, building relationships, and helping them understand what to expect throughout the process.”

    — Jack L., EVP Acquisitions, national homebuilder (publicly traded)

    “Mike Browning is a credit to the North Texas commercial real estate industry. His market knowledge, diligence, competency and attention to detail have been an asset to our family office for over two decades.

    We had owned the property for more than ten years and decided to sell after closing a partnership. Our main concern was maximizing market value. The transaction was handled with good stewardship from LOI through contract, due diligence and closing.

    If you are serious about selling, let Mike handle it.”

    — Amin B., Repeat Land Client (20+ years)

    Of course, none of that means you need a broker today.

    Even if you’re not considering selling, things change. Sometimes quickly.

    It’s better to have information and not need it rather than scrambling at the last minute. The MBR Land Reality Check gives you a clear-headed look at what’s happening around your property and what it might sell for today.

    No pressure to list, no obligation, and it’s free.

    Is it a bad idea to know where you stand?

    Check it out here.

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  • Say It Before They Do

    Say It Before They Do

    Turns out the fastest way to defuse an accusation is to make it yourself.

    One of my repeat clients told me something I really appreciated not long ago. They are capable of performing on large transactions both as a buyer and seller, so naturally they have lots of brokers showing them anything and everything.

    Some of it makes sense and a lot of it doesn’t. But as you can expect, most of it gets presented to them with all the good parts highlighted and the not-so-good downplayed. If mentioned at all.

    So what did he say? Basically that he knows I want to sell deals, that’s how I make money after all. But he really likes that I get to the so-called “hair” on a deal pretty quick, if not right from the jump.

    To me, it’s the only sensible way to operate. But if you’ve dealt with real estate folks very long, you know it doesn’t always work that way.

    For my part, it’s just smart business. If you intend to be around a long time, you need people to trust what you tell them. And the best way to keep a client wanting to buy land deals is to make sure they do well on the ones they’re buying today.

    Besides, these are sophisticated guys. If I know about something affecting a deal, they’re going to find it sooner or later anyway.

    Chris Voss has a name for this in Never Split The Difference. He calls it an accusation audit. The best way to deal with baggage where your counterpart might have an issue with what you’ve said or done is to be the one who brings it up first. Usually right at the start.

    It sounds like handing the other person ammunition. It’s usually the opposite. Once you’ve said the uncomfortable thing yourself, they don’t have to wonder whether you see it too. You’ve put it on the table where both of you can deal with it. And often, hearing their own worst thought said back to them plainly takes some of the force out of it.

    Or maybe you are right, and they are carrying a grudge and they aren’t going to do business with you no matter what. At least you found it out up front, and saved time and effort for both of you.

    There’s a difference between defending yourself against an accusation and never letting it land in the first place.

    It only works if you’re honest about what the accusations actually are. Sugarcoating them defeats the whole point, and people can tell when you’re doing it. You have to say the version that actually stings a little.

    I’ve been flogging this book for about a month now, so I’ll give it a rest after today. But given that negotiation touches just about every part of your life, can it be a bad idea to get better at it?

    Buy Never Split The Difference Here

    PS- That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.

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  • Take The Win

    Take The Win

    You don’t also have to announce it.

    Celina’s city council recently approved some incentives to land a second Walmart. I won’t break it down here, but it could be pretty substantial. And probably a smart move, I’d say. Sales tax is one of the few revenue levers a city actually controls, and a big box store just inside your line pulls shoppers in from both sides while the tax dollars only land on yours. So far, so good.

    Then the mayor opened his mouth.

    Ryan Tubbs told the room they were going to build the best Walmart they could “so every resident of Pilot Point comes and visits Celina and shops at Walmart… so that we cause sales tax leakage for our lovely neighbors.”

    He’s not wrong, that’s exactly what’s going to happen. Pilot Point residents will drive to the closer store, and Celina banks the tax revenue while Pilot Point’s roads absorb the traffic that got them there.

    But saying it out loud like that is a low status move. It’s also not smart business.

    There’s about a 100% chance Tubbs sits across a table from somebody in Pilot Point again before too long. A road project, a shared utility line, some regional thing nobody can avoid. And now he’s the guy who stood up and gloated about it on the record. Doesn’t matter that he was right. That’s not a great position to negotiate from the next time he needs something from them.

    Win the deal. Then keep your mouth shut about it. Be gracious.

    If you’re a land investor you know this.

    You make your money when you buy, not when you sell. Old idea, still true every time.

    When somebody’s willing to sell below market today, there’s almost always a reason behind it. A health scare, a divorce, a job that’s moving them, an estate nobody in the family wants to deal with, a note coming due next month.

    You didn’t create the situation. You just showed up with a solution when they needed one, and the price reflected the circumstances.

    The deal closes. You’re very happy with the deal. That doesn’t mean you explain to the seller how much you saved, or mention it to their neighbor, or bring it up again down the road when the tract’s worth double.

    You say thank you and you mean it.

    And that you hope your paths cross again, because in this business they usually do, and you want to still be the guy they’d sell to next time.

    Gloating doesn’t get you anything the win didn’t already get you. It just costs you the next deal, or the next referral, or the next seller who was on the fence and heard how you talk about the last one.

    Most of the good deals I’ve gotten over the years came from somebody who trusted me enough to call again.

    People have long memories when you make them feel like the loser.

    PS- If you’d rather hear about a deal before it goes anywhere else, I keep a short list for that. Nothing fancy about it. When something worth a second look clears my screen, the people on the list hear first. No spam, no newsletter, nothing on a schedule.

    [Add me to the list.]

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  • How Am I Supposed to Do That?

    How Am I Supposed to Do That?

    Turns out it’s not a rhetorical question.

    Some people think a good comeback is the whole game.

    When someone makes an unrealistic proposal or a demand that doesn’t work the first thing most people want to do is explain why. Lay out the reasons. Walk through the math. Win the point.

    But winning the point doesn’t do much for you in a negotiation. The other side just digs in, maybe comes up with a competing set of facts and reasons. Worse, they’re no longer thinking about making a deal, they are thinking about not losing. Which isn’t good if you want to make a deal.

    Chris Voss has a fix for this that sounds almost too simple to work.

    Instead of arguing, you ask how you’re supposed to make it happen. Not sarcastic. Not a setup. An actual question. “How am I supposed to take that to the seller when there are two other offers on the table?” Now he’s not defending his number anymore. He’s trying to solve your problem, which used to be his demand.

    Voss calls these calibrated questions. Open-ended, no yes or no available, and they hand your problem to the other person instead of making it a fight. Most people can’t resist answering a question that starts with “how.” Refusing to answer feels rude in a way that refusing to agree never does.

    I had a buyer a while back convinced he could get a large reduction, much more than what was realistic. I could’ve argued comps at him all day and gotten nowhere, because in his head the comps were the ones that made his number look right. So instead I asked him how I was supposed to bring that number to a seller who had competing offers. Then I asked how many people were going to want to work with us in the future if we got a reputation for chiseling and retrading every deal.

    He thought about it, came up with a more realistic number, and we got the deal done.

    Works the other way too. A seller with a too-high price in mind doesn’t need me to lecture him on it. He needs to hear himself try to answer how a buyer’s supposed to make the math work at that price. He’ll usually get there faster than I would’ve gotten him there.

    Statements draw a line and dare the other guy to cross it. Anybody can say no to a line. It’s a lot harder to say no to a question you have to actually sit and answer first.

    I still slip and argue the number sometimes. Old habit. But the times I remember to just ask, it goes better, and I don’t have to be right in the room to get the outcome I wanted.

    This is the third one I’ve pulled from Never Split the Difference, and I’m running out of ways to say the same thing. Buy the book. You’ll use this stuff in a lot more places than a purchase agreement.

    Get it Here

    PS- That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.

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  • Shouldn’t This Be Kept Secret?

    Shouldn’t This Be Kept Secret?

    The answer may surprise you.

    I’ve been writing the last few weeks about Jim Camp’s negotiation masterpiece, Start With No. Along with occasionally trying to talk you into buying a copy and reading it yourself.

    Thanks to those who bought through my link. I don’t think you’ll be disappointed. If anything, you’ll probably be surprised how quickly you start seeing opportunities to apply the basics.

    One question comes up pretty often when people hear about systems like this.

    If it’s really that effective, why would you tell anyone about it?

    Wouldn’t you be better off keeping it to yourself?

    It’s a fair question.

    Camp actually addresses it in the book. He said he wished more of his counterparts used the same system he did. Negotiations would be smoother, less emotional, and far more productive.

    Instead of spending days playing games, the cards would get on the table faster. You’d either make the right deal sooner or discover there was never a deal to be made in the first place.

    Both outcomes are wins.

    Obviously getting an agreement is great. But finding out in a day that there’s no deal instead of spending a week chasing one isn’t exactly a loss. It frees both sides to move on to something more productive.

    The difference comes down to principles versus tactics.

    If a finance manager at a car dealership has figured out a handful of tricks that pressure people into buying an overpriced warranty, he doesn’t want those tricks publicized. Once the person across the table understands the game, the game stops working.

    Tactics depend on the other side not knowing what’s happening.

    Principles don’t.

    If you’re asking honest questions, trying to understand what’s really going on, and looking for a deal that makes sense for everyone involved, it doesn’t hurt when the other side understands what you’re doing. In some cases it actually helps.

    Beyond that, I don’t spend much time worrying about other people learning what I know.

    Most people won’t put it into practice anyway.

    And the few who do often become easier to work with, not harder.

    One of the things I like most about Camp’s approach is that it removes much of the tension people normally associate with negotiation. Less pressure. Less posturing. Less pretending.

    Just figuring out whether there’s a deal to be had and, if so, what it looks like.

    Once you learn it, it really does feel like you’re playing a different game than before.

    In a good way.

    And since almost every situation you encounter involves negotiation, getting better at it is one of the highest-leverage investments you can make in yourself.

    It won’t happen overnight.

    But you’ll probably see results faster than you expect.

    Get It Here

    P.S. That link goes through Amazon and I’m an affiliate. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but if you buy the book—or anything else while you’re there—I get a small commission.

  • My Wife Thought It Was Magic

    My Wife Thought It Was Magic

    And maybe it sort of was.

    Most people think negotiation is something that happens in land deals. Maybe car deals too.

    It’s not.

    Trying to get your kid to clean their room is negotiation. Deciding where to eat is negotiation. Getting time off work for an appointment is negotiation. Most of life is negotiation whether we realize it or not.

    Improving your negotiation skills is probably the most high leverage way to improve your life overall. It touches everything.

    Most people picture a great negotiator as the guy at the dealership. Pushy. A little slick. Leaning on pressure and urgency because that’s the only lever he knows how to pull.

    Sometimes that works.

    But ask yourself how you feel after most car-buying experiences. Even if you like the car, you’re often thinking, I’m never buying from that guy again.

    That’s the problem with pressure tactics. Even when they work, they burn bridges. You win the deal in front of you and lose the next ten.

    Jim Camp’s system from Start With No is different, though I wouldn’t call it the opposite of that. It’s not weak, and it’s not caving in to get to yes faster. Weak gets eaten alive by anyone with real leverage. What it does is take a lot of the tension out of the room without giving up your position. Deals close easier. People stay friendly afterward.

    Sometimes it works so well it’s almost unsettling.

    A while back my wife bought something online from a company that was very clear about its policy. No refunds. No exceptions.

    Naturally, the item broke almost immediately.

    She emailed them and got exactly the response you’d expect. They pointed to the policy and politely told her no.

    She was frustrated.

    I looked at the exchange, wrote a short response, and told her to send it. Maybe four sentences.

    She read it and said there was no way it would work, but she sent it anyway, and the refund was approved almost immediately.

    What amused me wasn’t the refund. It was what happened afterward.

    She looked at me suspiciously and asked:

    “Have you been using this on me?”

    I assured her I only use my powers for good.

    One of the reasons I like Jim Camp’s work is that his system doesn’t rely on pressure, clever arguments, or trying to talk circles around people. In fact, a lot of the time it involves talking less, not more.

    That’s harder than it sounds.

    If you’ve never read Start With No, it’s worth your time.

    Get it here

    P.S. The link goes through Amazon and I’m an affiliate. It doesn’t cost you anything extra, but if you buy the book (or anything else while you’re there), I get a small commission.

  • The Danger of Needing It

    The Danger of Needing It

    The second you need the deal, you’ve already given up the good version of it.

    One of the best books on negotiation is Start With No by Jim Camp. Probably the single most important idea in it: neediness is the first thing you have to get control of. Until you do, you’re at the mercy of whoever you’re sitting across from.

    Doesn’t matter if it’s a car, a house, a piece of land, or where you’re going for dinner Friday. Same rule.

    Go shopping for a car and it’s about a sure thing that once you show real interest, the salesman mentions someone else. They’re coming to look at it this afternoon. Or they were in yesterday, said they’d probably be back. Whatever the line is, the point is the same. Make you feel like if you don’t move now, you’re going to lose it.

    And it works. Not because you’re gullible. Because it’s aimed at something real. The second you stop thinking “I like this” and start thinking “I need this,” you’ve handed over the leverage.

    You don’t even notice it happening. You just start agreeing to things you wouldn’t have agreed to an hour earlier.

    Here’s what your brain skates right past. On the way to that lot, you passed a few thousand other cars. Other lots. Other listings. These things are mass produced. If this one gets away from you, there’s another one out there, probably better, and you’ll never think about this one again.

    You need food. You need shelter. Around here you probably need a vehicle of some kind. But you don’t need this particular car. You don’t need this particular house.

    Land’s a little different. No two pieces are exactly alike, so in a technical sense a specific tract really is one of one. But different doesn’t mean irreplaceable. Miss it, and the sun still comes up tomorrow. You still eat dinner. You’ll find something else that checks the boxes, maybe something you like better, and you won’t spend one more minute thinking about the one that got away.

    Wanting something is fine. Wanting it enough to stretch a little, work for it, negotiate hard. Also fine, as long as you’re doing it with your eyes open. Needing it is where it goes sideways.

    That’s when you stop negotiating and start hoping nobody notices you’re begging.

    The people on the other side of the table notice. Even the ones who aren’t trying to work you over will feel the shift, and the good ones absolutely will use it. Not because they’re crooked. Because that’s the game, and you just told them you’re not really playing it anymore.

    The fix isn’t complicated, even if it’s not easy. Notice when you’ve crossed the line from “I’d like this” to “I have to have this.” That’s your signal to slow down, not speed up. Ask yourself what you’re actually risking by waiting a day. Usually the honest answer is: not much. The deadline was mostly invented to make you feel exactly what you’re feeling right now.

    Camp built an entire system around this, and it’s worth your time if you’ve never read it. Whether you’re negotiating a purchase, a sale, a raise, or just trying to get your teenager to clean their room. Once you see how much of negotiation is really about who wants it less, you can’t unsee it.

    Grab a copy here

    It’ll change how you walk into every negotiation. And since everything is a negotiation, it may change your life.

    PS- That link goes through Amazon, and I’m an affiliate. Doesn’t cost you a dime more, but if you click through and buy the book, or anything else while you’re there, I get a small commission.

  • The Gap Between Stories

    The Gap Between Stories

    You’re almost never 100% right. Or wrong.

    Most people in a conflict become very, very good at one thing.

    Their version.

    I’ve watched it happen enough times to recognize the pattern early. Someone gets into a dispute, and immediately everyone assembles their case. The evidence. The timeline. Getting to others first, so they can get you on their side. They can tell you exactly what happened and exactly why the other person is wrong, and they’ve told it so many times it has the smooth, rehearsed quality of something that stopped being examined a while ago.

    What they usually can’t do is explain the other side.

    Not a real version of it anyway. Not the version the other person might actually recognize. They can do a kind of highlight-reel caricature where the other person comes off as selfish or unreasonable or oblivious, but that’s not the same thing. That’s just their own story with a different character labeled.

    Chris Voss has a line I keep coming back to. There are three sides to every story: my side, your side, and the truth. Most people spend their whole lives defending the first one.

    People forget to consider what that costs.

    It costs resolution, obviously. But it also costs information. If you can’t articulate the other person’s position in a way they’d agree with, you’re not negotiating with them. You’re negotiating with your idea of them, which is almost always a worse version than the actual person. Easier to dismiss. Easier to be right about.

    I’ve seen this play out many times where both sides are so committed to their read on what’s fair that they let something genuinely good fall apart. One side thinks the other is greedy. The other finds the offer insulting. Neither one has sat with the question of what the other person actually needs and why. The gap between the two stories is where the deal lives, but a lot of times nobody goes there.

    It shows up everywhere. Families. Business partnerships. Long friendships that quietly go cold.

    The test Voss suggests is a good one. Can you make the other person’s case as well as they could? Not a version that secretly makes you look reasonable by comparison. The real one, with their actual concerns and their actual logic and the parts of their position that, if you’re honest, have some merit.

    Most people can’t do it. Which means most people are still negotiating with their own story instead of with the situation in front of them.

    That’s not a moral failing. It’s just expensive.

    PS- Most landowners aren’t planning to sell today.

    But when the time comes, the people who already have a clear read on the market tend to make better decisions. That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. It looks at nearby sales, current listings, development pressure, and the details affecting value that aren’t obvious from the road.

    Is it a bad idea to know where things stand?

    Get Yours Here

    PPS -If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but enjoy reading about land, markets, and negotiation, you can sign up below and get these posts in your inbox.

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  • The Negotiation Nobody Notices

    The Negotiation Nobody Notices

    Nitpicking nickels, netting nothing.

    Buyers sometimes lose deals for a strange reason.

    They win too many small arguments.

    Most people think negotiation means squeezing every last concession out of the other side.

    But small concessions often trigger the same psychology we talked about earlier. People feel losses about twice as strongly as equivalent gains.

    So every small “win” for the buyer can feel like a loss to the seller.

    And losses tend to demand compensation.

    Imagine you’re buying a tract of land.

    The price is close to working.

    But during negotiations you start asking for a list of smaller items:

    Pay for the survey.
    Pay for title.
    Fix the fence.
    Cover some closing costs.

    None of these things are huge by themselves.

    But to the seller, every one of them feels like giving something up.

    Soon the deal starts to feel worse than the original offer.

    And the seller reacts the same way most people do when they feel losses stacking up.

    They push back harder on the price.

    Or they simply decide the deal isn’t worth the trouble.

    Ironically, buyers sometimes end up paying more by trying to win those smaller battles.

    The deals that close smoothly usually look different.

    Both sides focus on the big economics first.

    Once that works, they stop trying to win every small point.

    Because in negotiation, momentum matters.

    If the deal feels good, people want to finish it.

    If it starts to feel like a series of losses, they start looking for a way out.

    And most deals that fall apart don’t fail because of the big numbers.

    They fail because of the little ones.

    P.S. Before negotiating anything, it helps to know where you stand in the market. Even if you’re not looking to do anything today, the time to start paying attention is before you actually need to.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. Real market intelligence from someone with decades in the land business. You’ll know what’s selling, for how much, and what’s happening in terms of development.

    It’s free today. Never any obligation, and never any pressure to list.

    Get Yours Here

    P.P.S. If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but liked reading this, you can get posts like this in your inbox below. Usually daily.

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  • The Quiet Compromise

    The Quiet Compromise

    If the other side feels like they are “getting something,” that’s often good enough.

    One of the most important things to understand about negotiation has nothing to do with price.

    It has to do with how people experience gains and losses.

    Research by psychologist Daniel Kahneman showed that people feel losses much more strongly than gains. In simple terms, a loss hurts about twice as much as an equivalent gain feels good.

    Lose $100 and it bothers you.

    Gain $100 and it feels nice, but not nearly as strongly.

    To emotionally wipe out the loss of $100, you often need a gain closer to $200.

    This tendency is wired into us. It probably helped our ancestors avoid taking too many risks.

    But it also shows up constantly in negotiations.

    Imagine someone makes an offer on your land. The net number is close to acceptable to you, but not quite.

    Part of the deal is that they want you to pay for a survey that costs about $3,000.

    A lot of sellers immediately push back on that.

    They argue that the buyer should pay for the survey.

    But there’s usually an easier way to handle it.

    If you already plan to counter the price higher anyway, just leave the survey alone and increase your counter by a little more than you otherwise might.

    Maybe $5,000 higher.

    From your perspective, the math still works. In fact, it’s a little better for you than it would have been.

    But from the buyer’s perspective, the deal feels different.

    If you push them to pay for the survey, they experience that as a loss. And losses tend to loom larger than gains.

    They feel like they are giving something up.

    But if the survey stays the same and the price changes slightly, they don’t have the same reference point. They don’t know what your counteroffer would have been otherwise.

    So it doesn’t feel like they lost anything.

    The numbers may be almost identical either way.

    But one structure feels like friction.

    The other often sails right through.

    That’s what I think of as a quiet compromise.

    Same economics, different psychology.

    And in negotiation, psychology often decides which deals actually happen.

    P.S. Before negotiating anything, it helps to know where you stand in the market. Even if you’re not looking to do anything today, the time to start paying attention is before you actually need to.

    That’s what the MBR Land Reality Check is for. Real market intelligence from someone with decades in the land business. You’ll know what’s selling, for how much, and what’s happening in terms of development.

    It’s free today. Never any obligation, and never any pressure to list.

    Get Yours Here

    P.P.S. If you’re not ready for a Reality Check but liked reading this, you can get posts like this in your inbox below. Usually daily.

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