Must-Read Negotiation Books
For the average agent, negotiation can be uncomfortable at best, and terrifying (or a major lost opportunity) at best. However, being that negotiation is a huge part of the real estate biz, and your reputation and success majorly depend on it - negotiation should be treated as a skill that is constantly being honed. How does one hone the elusive skill of negotiation? Well, practice undoubtedly helps - but learning from the experts is a great way to jump start your knowledge and confidence of the craft.
Below we’ve rounded up some of our favorite, must-read negotiation books:
Getting to Yes
A 30 year- veteran (with frequent updates and revisions) in the negotiation book world, Getting to Yes: Negotiating Agreement Without Giving In has been a long-time, go-to book for universal negotiation principles that work with everything from multi-million real estate deals to getting your kid to get to bed. This is a great read to dive into general step-by-step best practices with negotiations, and a great place to start.
Never Split the Difference
If there’s ever a book on the pure psychology of negotiating, Never Split the Difference: Negotiating as if Your Life Depended on It might very well be it. Chris Voss, former FBI hostage negotiator, runs through the full gamut of negotiating psychology from why it's uncomfortable to do so in the first place (conflict and confrontation are usually avoided) to exactly what to pay attention body language-wise and emotional intelligence-wise when building rapport with someone to negotiate. You’ll also walk away with understanding the three basic types of negotiators; analyst, accommodator, and asserter.
The Altman Close
Take it from someone who has sold over $3 Billion in real estate and owns the most expensive one bedroom house in history, Josh Altman seems to know what he’s talking about. The Altman Close: The Million-Dollar Negotiating Tactics from America’s Top-Selling Real Estate Agent dives into how you need to build and market your reputation as the first step to negotiating your best deals. He then goes into how hunger, demand and scarcity will help get the best prices - and how to get your strategy on a sort of “rinse and repeat” cycle for your best negotiations moving forward.
The Book On Negotiating Real Estate
Combining the science of negotiation with the real-life combined 1,000 sales of the three authors of The Book on Negotiating Real Estate: Expert Strategies for Getting the Best Deals for Buying and Selling Real Estate Property allows you to feel like you’re at the table of three great real estate mentors. This book includes negotiating tips and tricks for the entire sales journey from initial conversations to last minute concessions at closing.
Ask For More
When the science-backed psychology of negotiations and advanced strategy feels too much to take in, the book Ask for More: 10 Questions to Negotiate Anything is a great guide to come back to the basics. Columbia law professor and mediation expert, Alexandra Carter, offers 10 straightforward (AKA - foolproof) questions that can be used in a variety of situations to ask (and receive) more. Sounds pretty good, right?
Negotiation Genius
Depok Malhotra, known as one of the experts in the field of negotiation, uses Negotiation Genius: How to Overcome Obstacles and Achieve Brilliant Results at the Bargaining Table and Beyond to dive into habits and strategies to set you up for success. Malhotra’s teachings are known for combining real world examples with cutting-edge behavioral research to give you confidence in the right moves to make - even with someone much more powerful than yourself.
Bargaining for Advantage
In Bargaining for Advantage: Negotiation Strategies for Reasonable PeopleProfessor Richard Shell lays out the step-by-step framework for something unique in the business and negotiation world; a way to negotiate as you are, and not how you should be while still being backed with neuroscience and real life examples. This is a great read if you want to stay true to yourself while still learning from negotiators ranging from bankers to Gandhi.