Don’t Be Embarrassed About Asking Vendors And Creditors For A Better Deal

Although you have the perfect right to haggle and negotiate before handing over your hard earned cash, most people will tell you that they don’t or can’t do it, because they feel embarrassed and almost ashamed to ask for a better deal.

The reason that most people, and men in particular, don’t like doing it is partly cultural and partly upbringing, and if you’ve traveled the middle east, the far east, South America or even Mexico, then you’ll know that if you don’t try to negotiate then you’re not only considered somewhat stupid, but from the seller’s point of view, you also took all the fun out of the buying and selling process.

There is a standing joke in Israel which goes, “How do you make a storekeeper angry in Israel?”, and the answer is, “you enter the shop and ask how much something costs. The store keeper tells you $155 and you pay him the $155 and leave. The merchant slaps his leg and asks himself heatedly why he didn’t ask for more”.

Let’s be clear that I’m not talking about negotiating in a coffee shop, or your local supermarket, but you can definitely negotiate a better price in more places than you’d probably imagine, and you’d be really silly to buy expensive jewelry, or a car at the asking price, and you might well be able to lower the price of even things like dental work if you just push a little.

The First Truism

a) Something is worth what somebody is willing to pay for it.

If a quick example would help you better understand this, then you need look further than at what happened to the prices of real estate in the U.S. over the last year or so. People bought properties at inflated prices and lenders gave the loans because they felt sure that the price would go up. They went down because people wouldn’t pay the prices.

The Second Truism

You have the right to ask for a better price, an extended warranty at no extra cost, or a first-time-customer discount etc. and the seller has the right to refuse. There is no shame in your asking for these things and no shame in being refused them.

The Third Truism

The vast majority of sellers would much prefer to give you a 5-10-20% discount rather than have you leave the store without buying anything. In lots of countries the seller will probably follow you down the street yelling that you’ll get a much better deal if you’ll just come back, but that’s highly unlikely to happen in Europe or the U.S. or Europe.

You’re the one that needs to ask for the better price, so here are six negotiating tips.

1) A Bird In The Hand

Offer to pay cash and you’ll almost always get a discount. There are many reasons for this but the most obvious one is that when you pay with a credit card it costs the seller an immediate 2-5% depending on the card that you use.

If you want to play with the seller’s head a little, then offer him a Diner’s Club or American Express card and then ask if there’s a discount for cash.

They charge vendors nearly twice as much as Visa and Master Card.

2) Don’t Talk Too Much

After you ask for a discount, keep quiet and wait. It might not be easy but you must leave the ball in the seller’s court.

3) Make Sure The Seller Spends A Lot Of Time With You

Someone that walks into a store and immediately asks for a discount will have far less chance of getting one than somebody that has taken twenty minutes of the seller’s time.

4) Never say, “Let me be honest with you”.

How would you feel if after several minutes of conversation somebody said, “Let me be honest with you”.

You’d have to ask yourself what he’d being doing up until then.

5) Take It Or Leave It!

Don’t ever say, “Take it or leave it”.

You’ll almost never get a better deal by offering an ultimatum, but you might well be shown the door.

6) Never Say “What’s the lowest price that you’ll accept?”.

First of all, the seller will never tell you, and secondly he’ll have serious doubts about wanting to deal with you at all.

Negotiating With Creditors

Negotiating with credit card companies or other lenders is not dissimilar to negotiating with vendors.

1) Asking a credit card company to lower your interest, or forgive a part of your debt is not a shameful thing to do.

2) A lender would much rather have you repay a part of you debt than have you file for bankruptcy.

Supposing Negotiating Just Isn’t For You.

If it’s simply not in your nature to negotiate, then see if you can get somebody that you know to do it for you, and if you pay him then you should both come out like winners.

I used to hate selling my cars, and didn’t want to quibble with the dealership where I was buying the new car, or haggle with private parties, so I used to call a friend of mine who excelled at wheeling and dealing, and after finding out what a good blue book price would be, I’d tell him that anything that he got over and above that price was for him, and we’d always both end up happy.

If you want somebody to negotiate with creditors for you, then only use a company or agency that is BBB (Better Business Bureau) approved, and if you’re staring bankruptcy in the face, then you can most likely get a free consultation with a skilled bankruptcy attorney in your area.

There is certainly nothing wrong with getting the best deals that you can get, and not even trying would really be selling yourself short, so next time you want to purchase something, remember the above tips and put them to good use, and save yourself a growing amount of money.

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Duration : 0:5:10

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Part 2 (Excerpt)

The median income family can afford twice the median priced home; prices drop over 50%

And now I mentioned Dan Havey is back in the studio with us, Dan has done a lot of great things in the mortgage industry. He left us about a year and a half ago, is that right Dan?

Yes, I left the mortgage industry in October of 2007. Tell us a little bit more about yourself.

As you know I came originally from Wisconsin, where I got a degree in Business Finance and I came out here in 1989 and started working with my brother selling real estate owned-REO, bank owned properties for Fannie Mae, Countrywide, and the Resolution Trust Corporation-RTC which was the government entity that was put in charge of disposing of all the real estate owned by the 1800 S&Ls that had failed. I did that until about 1995 when I moved into the mortgage industry and there for 12 years I worked predominately with bankruptcy attorneys helping their clients get out of bankruptcy and foreclosure. I left the mortgage industry in October of 2007. Now I am working predominately in the arena of marketing for real estate and mortgage companies, helping out companies, just like Im here helping out Michael today, to get people to realize that right now actually is a really good time to buy.

There are a couple of points I want to make and it was something that Michael had said earlier. The first one was that 4% interest rate. Originally Obama said a couple of weeks ago, when he rolled out the mortgage plan, that they were going to take the $200 billion and use it to buy mortgage backed securities, well the article I was reading today said it appears that plan may have changed. Instead of buying the mortgage backs they were actually buying the stock of Fannie and Freddie to help support the company and keep these companies going under. I dont quite understand why being how they own them now.

Well youve got to hand it to the government they have really done a heck of a job helping Fannie Mae out, for instance today the stock is up to $0.41. Wow, doing so well, I remember when it was $150 or so, where it was at the top of the market.

Today, right now is definitely the best time even if rates dont get down to the 4% point. The beauty of it and were going to talk more about this in a later segment, is that we have seen a 51% decline in home values from the peak of the market. So you dont have to have the absolute greatest interest rate in order to be able to buy a house today. The median home price right now is $130,000 in Maricopa County, it was $264,000 just two years ago.

So the median home price is $130,000? We are going to talk a little bit about what a person has to make to actually qualify for that. Well it is definitely well within the means of a median income family. Right now a median income family makes about $64,000 in the state of Arizona according to the US Census Bureau and HUD. I ran some numbers today, I think at 6% interest and at that rate they can buy a $280,000 house. So you can buy twice the median home price if you are making just what the median income family would be in the state of Arizona. So the median household income buys double the median priced house in Maricopa County. That is correct, at 6% interest.

And the reality of it is interest rates are not even that high right now. So for people to be waiting for that perfect interest rate of 4% it doesnt really matter if it gets here or not because right now is such an incredibly fabulous time to be buying a house. There are so many foreclosures out there on the market right now, there are so many short sales out there on the market right now, and the point you made earlier is very important, that people have to get in and get prequalified, know exactly what they can buy. Now in many cases you are going to need a down payment, so get with your mortgage broker, get with Velocity Financial and start working on that program of getting those funds together for the down payment as well.

Dan Havey we talked in the past about whats available for financing these days, interesting to give little pat on the back for Velocity Financial is one of less than 15% of all of the lenders in the state of Arizona that are qualified to do FHA financed homes. Now FHA financing, people used to think it was only for first time home buyers, thats no longer the case. The FHA loan which only requires 3.5% down payment it doesnt matter if you have owned a home before and in many cases you can own another home now so long as your new purchase is going to be your primary residence you can utilize FHA financing and put only 3.5% down.

Duration : 0:6:42

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Expert: Patrick Munro
Contact: www.northstarnavigator.com
Bio: Patrick Munro is a registered financial consultant (RFC) with outstanding sales volume of progressive financial products and solutions to the senior and boomer marketplace.
Filmmaker: Reel Media LLC

Duration : 0:1:21

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Duration : 0:3:41

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Duration : 0:1:7

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Duration : 0:4:56

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Duration : 0:3:24

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http://hammer.ucla.edu/watchlisten/watchlisten/show_id/129363

( fair use under US law )

recorded on June 11th 2009

the great american bank robbery

William K. Black, the former litigation director of the Federal Home Loan Bank Board who investigated the Savings and Loan disaster of the 1980s, discusses the latest scandal in which a single bank, IndyMac, lost more money than was lost during the entire Savings and Loan crisis. He will examine the political failure behind this economic disaster, in which not only massive fraud has taken place, but a vast transfer of wealth from the poor and middle class continues as the federal government bails out the seemingly reckless, if not the criminal. Black teaches economics and law at the University of Missouri, Kansas City and is the author of The Best Way to Rob a Bank Is to Own One. (Run Time: 1 hour, 38 min.)

Duration : 0:5:59

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http://www.chron.com/disp/story.mpl/front/6505651.html

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Iran’s president says enemies’ ‘soft overthrow’ failed

http://www.latimes.com/news/nationworld/world/la-fg-iran1-2009jul01,0,4811927.story

Gloomy U.S. consumers clip housing recovery hopes

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Gloomy-US-consumers-clip-rb-2688130524.html?x=0&.v=1

Home prices post 18.1 percent annual drop in April

http://finance.yahoo.com/news/Home-prices-post-181-percent-apf-801285894.html?x=0

More Americans See Democratic Party as Too Liberal

http://www.gallup.com/poll/121307/More-Americans-See-Democratic-Party-Too-Liberal.aspx?version=print

Democrat Franken wins protracted Minn. Senate race
http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/us_minnesota_senate

Duration : 0:6:47

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