You Can Choose the House, or You Can Choose the Deal

You usually can't have both. And the sooner a buyer decides which one they're actually after, the better I can do my job.

Here's what I mean.

If you tell me "I want that one" — the one on the corner, the one you've already mentally arranged the furniture in — I can go to work on price. I'll do my homework, I'll find out everything I can about the seller, and I'll negotiate hard. You'll probably do fine. But there's a ceiling on how hard I can push, and the ceiling is this: a seller can feel it when a buyer is in love. The moment there's only one house on earth that will do, you've handed the other side the only piece of information that really matters.

That's choosing the house. It's a completely legitimate choice. Some properties are genuinely one of one — the lot, the view, the layout, the street your parents live on. If that's the situation, say so, and we'll go get it. Just go in knowing you're paying for the privilege of being certain.

Choosing the deal is the other path, and it costs you something too. It costs you the right to decide which house you end up in.

What choosing the deal actually looks like

It looks like you telling me "I'd be happy in any of these three."

Not three compromises. Three you'd genuinely be glad to own. The moment you can say that, everything changes. Now I'm running three conversations instead of one. Now I can find out which of those three sellers actually needs to move — and that's where we go. If that seller won't come to a number that makes sense, we move to the next one, and you've lost nothing but a week.

Flexibility isn't a negotiating tactic. It's a position. And it's the only one that reliably produces a great price.

Not every seller can give you a deal

Here's what gets missed in a buyer's market. A soft market doesn't mean every seller is motivated. Plenty of them aren't selling because they have to — they're testing a number. They'll sit at that number for six months, pull the listing, and come back in the spring. You can write them the most beautifully constructed offer of your life and it won't matter. They don't need you.

So the real question isn't "what's the market doing." It's "which of these sellers has an actual reason to move."

The three Ds

There's an old shorthand in this business for what turns a seller into a real seller: death, divorce, and debt. An estate that needs settling. A separation where neither party can carry the place alone. A renewal that came back at a number nobody planned for.

I'll say this plainly, because it matters: there's nothing to celebrate in any of that. But there is something worth understanding. A seller in that position isn't trying to win. They're trying to finish. Certainty is worth more to them than the last twenty thousand dollars, and a clean offer with a realistic closing date and no games is genuinely the most useful thing anyone can hand them.

That isn't taking advantage. It's two people wanting different things and both getting them. The buyer wants value. The seller wants it over. Those trade.

How you find them

You can spot these listings if you know what you're looking at.

Price adjustments are the loudest signal — not one, but a pattern. A listing that's come down three times in four months is telling you something no amount of marketing copy can paper over. Days on market says something too, measured against the rest of the neighbourhood rather than against nothing.

And then there's the method nobody expects: I ask.

I call the listing agent and I ask what's going on. You'd be amazed how often you get a straight answer. They've already bought. It's an estate. They need a longer close. They had a deal collapse and they're nervous. Listing agents want their listing sold, and most will tell you what their seller actually needs, because that's how deals get made.

That phone call is most of my job. It's also the part you can't do from a search app.

So which one are you choosing?

Both answers are fine. I've helped people chase one specific house and I've helped people chase the best number available, and I've been glad to do both.

But they're different jobs, and they need different instructions. If it's the house, tell me the house and I'll go get it. If it's the deal, give me your two or three and let me find out which of those sellers is a real seller.

What doesn't work is wanting the deal and acting like you want the house. In this market there's no shortage of listings — which is exactly why the buyers who stay flexible are the ones getting the numbers everybody else is reading about.

Choose the house, or choose the deal. Just tell me which, and I'll know how to work.