Hello and Welcome once again to another episode of Selling Greenville your favorite real estate podcast here in Greenville South Carolina I am your host as always Stan McCune realtor here in the upstate and you can find all of my contact information in the show notes reach out to me at any time for anything that you need real estate wise if you just want to talk about the show I'm happy to chat about that as well and if you appreciate the show please make sure that you subscribe to it you don't want to miss any future episodes make sure as well that you download episodes that's helpful for the Apple and Google algorithm and if you guys in particular can just take 10 seconds to just leave a review or even just one second to hit five stars on that rating I would appreciate that that encourages me to keep going with the show even as I'm crazy busy and barely able to squeeze it into my schedule so I would appreciate if you guys could do that today we're going to be talking about negotiating but not what we typically discuss when it comes to real estate negotiating on price or negotiating on terms negotiating between buyer and seller today we are going to be talking about negotiating with your spouse or your partner or your children sometimes there are multiple parties involved in a real estate purchase mostly most often it is the spouse but sometimes there are other parties regardless there is a negotiation involved that takes place between those different parties and sometimes out of all of the negotiations that can be the hardest one to deal with that can be the hardest negotiation of all because it's the most personal and real estate transactions as a whole I I I've mentioned this before but they are unique in terms of Market transactions you know when you make other Investments and other purchases it's not as emotional and it's not as personal as a real estate transaction is real estate buying and selling particularly your primary residents it's very personal people take it very personally they they are are emotionally invested you know in properties where they raised their children or where they had you know this memory or that memory there's all sorts of different things that are wrapped up in there and as you're moving to the next home and as you're looking to move to the next home there are emotions that get spilled over into that as well and often times I find myself in the middle of debates or disagreements between different parties on the same side again usually spouses I'm just going to say I'm going to say spouses and partners a lot just know that I'm not excluding any groups by saying that I'm just using that as a catchall for for whatever groups are involved in these in these transactions now generally the way I approach this when I'm in the middle of these types of of negotiations between spouses and partners I I generally don't try to take s unless just one party is just way off and and we run into this sometimes sometimes one party is just like well you know we know that this is going to happen and it's like no that's not going to happen or you know perhaps they're simply like you know they're trying to end up in a certain location in a certain house and the house that they are looking at it just does not check off the boxes that they agreed that they were going to try to check off at that point I'm gonna speak up and I'm going to be like hey I you know what you guys talked about before this is not the type of house that that you're pushing for that you guys originally talked about and so I will speak into that at times but generally I try to in these interspousal negotiations I try to be more of a sounding board I tried to to not make it about myself and my opinions because honestly I don't know all of the background all of the all of the the backdrop and and everything that causes spouses to to disagree and to and to have to negotiate and to debate with each other there's a lot that happens a lot of conversation happens that I'm not a part of so I have to navigate that very carefully so I try to be more of a sounding board and I just try to amplify the concerns and the thoughts of of each other of of each party try to help them to to see what each other is saying and of course I got a not a a full degree in it but my minor in college was in counseling so and psychology so I have a little bit of a background of that I took a lot of classes on that so I I feel like I have a little bit that I can bring to the table in terms of helping people work through some of these some of these situations some of these sometimes intense discussions that they have over buying and selling a home and so I want to talk about just a a handful of of tips here for how to go through that how to negotiate with your spouse I'm telling you I run into this a lot I I it it's very rare that you have a husband and wife team or whatever type of team that is looking to purchase a home that they agree 100% And are just in lock step on everything usually there's going to be some type of of disagreement and and different things that come up along the way and it's important to be able to handle those things appropriately and so I think the first main pointer that I would give in this regard is to start by learning to speak each other's languages and thinking about the potential transaction the potential move whatever it is from the other person's point of view this is really really crucial empathy it it's probably the most important part of this because what oftentimes ends up happening is people get frustrated with each other after you know they don't feel like their perspective is being heard and then as a result they don't really listen to the other person's perspective and then it ends up being this vicious cycle of nobody's listening to each other and part of why it it's hard to hear what the other person is saying is because the other person is speaking their language you're speaking your language and everyone's talking past each other and you as a communicator and I was reading about this recently from I don't even remember who it was but the the the the point of it was that when you're communicating the onus isn't on you merely to speak truthfully to speak factually but the onus is on you as a communicator to speak the language of the person that you're communicating to and of course when I say language I don't mean English or Spanish or whatever I mean speak in a way that they understand it if you're not speaking in a way that they understand it then what's the point why are you even communicating is it just to express yourself that's not going to help you in this type of a situation maybe there are some situations where it's good to just express yourself when you're buying a house you guys need to be communicating in a way that you guys both understand each other and and the onus is on you as a communicator to make sure that you're communicating that properly and if the other part party doesn't seem to be getting it that probably is a two-way street it's probably both that they need put more effort in but it's probably also that that you could put more effort into better communicating and I'm not just saying this because oh I took some classes in college no I see this all the time when I'm communicating or when I'm showing houses and seeing the communication between different partners and again I tread very lightly I I don't speak out and say hey you're not listening to each other not normally at least cuz that honestly some of that is not my business some of that goes goes much deeper than the real estate transaction but if you can get out in front of that on the front end you will help your communication greatly not just in the real estate TR transaction just in general now generally speaking one partner is more money oriented and finances oriented and one is more lifestyle oriented now there are a lot of exceptions and a lot of nuances to this but I'm speaking in general terms there's generally one person that's kind of like they are the money person in a let's just assume in a partner spousal type of relationship and then there's one that is more focused on lifestyle and okay what does this mean for our family and what does this mean for you know what our everyday life will look like and it's very easy particularly if that's the dynamic at play between you and your spouse that you start to speak past each other because you're really coming at things from two very different points of view and for the more lifestyle focused person I would say a way to here's kind of my advice in terms of of trying to look at it from the other person's point of view and trying to speak their language you need to to start by getting to the heart of what the money oriented person is most concerned about there there I have seen you know in in my relationship with my wife I am the more money oriented person so I see from that perspective more easily and at the same time I also realize that there are a lot of pitfalls there and and sometimes I will see the the more money oriented spouse or partner will come to very irrational conclusions just because one person is is the money focused person does not mean that they are the more rational person that is a very common misconception often times it's the exact opposite oftentimes the most rational arguments that I hear come from the more lifestyle oriented spouse they're like hey we are we are running out of space here we might have some tight finances but our finances aren't as tight as our house that we're living in you know like that makes sense and so that lifestyle focused person they need to get to the heart of what the money oriented person is concerned about they might not be concerned about things that are rational and but maybe they are it's you got to get to the heart of that is that more financial oriented person and and and by the way I'm assuming in this if there is a negotiation going on between the more lifestyle focused person and the money focused person probably the money focused person is objecting to spending money right that that's kind of my assumption usually that's the dynamic at play so that's going to kind of be my assumption as we talk about this but is that person approaching it just from a general feeling of we can't afford more than x amount we can't afford more than $200,000 we can't afford more than $200 $50,000 whatever whatever number they're they're throwing out there are they doing that just off the cuff or is their data behind it how did they come to that conclusion maybe they're saying we can't afford more than x amount per month well why is that okay how does that compare to your Current financial situation that is an important part if you are in a spousal relationship like that and you know maybe you don't look at the numbers very much you might need to start acclimating yourself with the numbers you might need to start understanding some of this data in order to be able to see how it it fits in with your goals and to better understand what your partner's goals are in terms of of the finances and so you need to look at that data and you need to bring some of that data into your communication you need to to crunch some numbers make it a convers ation around data rather than Feelings by the way I I already alluded to this but often times the people that are more money oriented it's their argumentation is not Based on data it's actually based more on feelings than on data we're going to talk about this a little bit more later as well because I've seen this over and over again cuz money seems like it's it's more data oriented than lifestyle right but you can go into that under that assumption but in reality what you're saying about numbers and about money and about all of this is just strictly based on hearsay and strictly based on what you feel rather than what the reality is I hear a lot of of people that are real money oriented say they don't want to get into more debt we we don't we I it's just it's stressful I hate it you're a servant to debt etc etc etc well that there is zero data in there unless you you can't afford the debt now okay if you can't afford it that's a whole another story but if historically you could afford your debt and and you have done that over the years and there's no reason to believe that that's going to change no evidence that that's going to change then if you're operating under the assumption that's going to change you're operating based on feelings less than on data that's just something to keep in mind again we're going to we're going to circle back to some of that in a few minutes here now if the more money oriented person has already crunched numbers and has said that that the monthly payment can't be more than whatever $11,000 or 1,500 a month whatever the case may be or your down payment can't be more than x amount you know 10,000 25,000 50,000 whatever you need to to look at those numbers yourself get a second set of eyes on those numbers because for two reasons first off the spouse may not be correct they they may be making poor assumptions most of us are not accountants and and so you know you get you know in these families someone has to ultimately look over the finances but they might not be very good at it and and at the end of the day it's better to have two sets of eyes on something than than just one so you may look at it if you're the more lifestyle focused spouse and you don't really look at the at the finances very much you may find that when you look at the finances there are some things that don't make sense and that could be a helpful thing to do and a helpful conversation but then if the spouse if you look at it and then the spouse is correct well now you understand where they're coming from so there's really it's really a no lose situation for you you need to be in order to communicate with that more money oriented person you need to be in the books so to speak you need to be aware of of the money in order to be able to have a conversation with them about money and and hopefully if you find that they are making some assumptions that aren't correct or really aren't logical if you actually have data to support what you're saying if you can actually speak from an the actual standpoint of the finances hopefully then you can work something out another way to approach this as well you know sometimes there's hesitancy about you know well we're we're buying a lot of house this is more house than I plan to what's this going to mean for the future it can be helpful to look at data on on the housing market and on appreci and what type of investment your next home could be a money focused person can very well very frequently will have a scarcity mindset and not realize that in most areas at at the very least in the upstate in most areas their home value are going to dramatically outpace inflation and they might be concerned about you know oh man we're paying all this interest and and all this and you know where's all this money going toward WS they might not realize that purchasing the next home it actually may be a tremendous investment for them I'm not going to go into the saying that every single home that you purchase is a great investment that's some of the value a realtor provides I can speak into that but generally speaking in the upstate our home values here appreciate at a very good clip and and that's for a variety of reasons that we've discussed in the past but it it can be helpful to approach it from that angle with that more money oriented person make sure that they understand the big picture it's not just about right now right here right now but the long term what does the longterm mean particularly if you're coming from renting if you've been renting and in this market in in Greenville it costs a lot more to rent than it does to buy it just does at some point perhaps that will balance out but that's been a longstanding thing for for quite some time and so it there are a few different ways you can approach it rationally with that more Finance oriented person by the way might also be worth looking at okay here's how home prices are going up in value what does this mean if you're not willing to buy now what does this mean you know let's say that you're like well we we just need to wait a few more years well will your money that you have and will your salary increase at the level that home values are increasing that's another way to look at it these are the types of things that if you can bring data to the conversation you can help to really speak into the finances of of the of what's being discussed and of that part of the negotiation now for the more money focused person as you're trying to speak the language of the lifestyle oriented more lifestyle oriented spouse try to get to the heart of those lifestyle arguments that your partner is making and why those things do or don't resonate with you and and and try to process that on your own before you try to process that to your your partner try to think through why why is it that this doesn't resonate with me why is it that I don't want to spend the money for that particularly if you know that technically you can afford it but you're concerned to afford it are you living out of fear for instance well why are you living out of fear is that rational fear or is that perhaps irrational maybe having a nice kitchen isn't so important to you but that's perhaps because you don't spend much time in the kitchen maybe your spouse does maybe you don't feel like you're running out of space in your h house you're comfortable with the size of your house but that might be because you grew up in a smaller home or that might just be because you're in a routine and and you are really comfortable in your routine right now once you get to the heart of of some of that as a more money focused person perhaps you can find points of compromise maybe the issue isn't so much that you don't agree on on what you guys actually need but that you simply need more time to save more money and of course again it's very important that you provide that the data that you look at the data and that you have something supporting the claims that you're making as a money focused person because again that life style oriented person they may have very rational arguments and if you just respond to those with feelings I just don't feel like we can afford this that might not be the wording that you use but that might be functionally what you're saying if you just say oh we can't afford more than $800 a month why that's just not we just can't afford more than that like I what if I lose my job you know what if what if this happens what if that happens well those are feeling oriented arguments that's not Based on data and and again I I strongly believe that bringing data in these situations having actual numbers and actual things to look at to comp compare and contrast that is what is necessary to get through these types of negotiations maybe the issue is that you are more focused on your lifestyle than your spouse's lifestyle oo I see this a lot I see this a whole lot a very common one is you know the more money oriented spouse typically is the quote unquote bread winner and the the bread winner he or she probably has to commute to work every day and or you know I also see instances where where that person takes the kids to school every day and you may find yourself in a in a situation where you don't want to spend more time on the road and so you end up selecting a very narrow geographic area because you're like I you know I don't want to spend an extra 20 minutes in my car every day but because of doing that you're actually preventing your spouse who lives in the house all day maybe a stay-at-home spouse they may live in the house basically all day and you are preventing them from having an entire day being upgraded because you don't want to downgrade 20 minutes of your day that is a very very common Dynamic that I find and so it's very important that you look at all of that and understand all of that and perhaps be willing to show some good faith to your spouse that's like hey here is the money situation okay here's the data here's what we can afford maybe we can't get everything that we want for this but I'm willing to show some good faith and surrender some of what I would prefer in order for you to get some of what you need and some of what you would prefer that's a great way to to diffuse the situation and to make progress in some of these negotiations don't just be self- absorb or self-focused but look at it from their perspective and try to move in their Direction all right so that was all about speaking the same language that was I knew that was going to be the longest one that we talked about there's a few more here that I want to hit on quickly be real about where the market is be real about where the Market is now this Cuts in a lot of different ways and I'm not even going to touch on on all that it it cuts you know all the different directions that it cuts I'm not going to touch on all of them but the first question is can you afford what you want and and again be real about this do you even know what you can afford or are you assuming it are you just taking a a dart and throwing it on a board of prices and saying we can afford $1,000 a month so you know what houses are out there that would be you know our mortgage payment would be less than $1,000 per month where did you come up with that number is that is that really the the the most that you can afford maybe that's more than you can afford you've got to make sure that that the that the number that you set as your guideline because that's very very important once you set that it's hard to it's hard to Pivot for from that you need to make sure that that that number actually makes sense maybe you're thinking oh we can't even get you know we can in theory afford you know $2,000 a month I mean really easily 2500 a month but I there's no way we'll get pre-approved for that okay let's talk to a lender you're you might find that you actually definitely can afford more than that and so that's an important part of the consideration as well making sure that that you actually know what you can afford on multiple levels on the level of what your income and expenses are on the level of what A lender will actually give you and you don't want to overshoot it you don't want to undershoot it figure out what the actual number is and once you've analyzed those numbers and you know exactly what you can or can't afford then you can start looking at homes in your budget now you actually have a baseline now you actually know where to begin and you can be real about it you don't just have to make assumptions assumptions that is again a big thing that I see in these negotiations between spouses that happen is there are all sorts of assumptions that are being tossed around let's try to eliminate those assumptions and then you can actually have a realistic conversation now once you look at homes in your budget if they aren't what you want then you have to either adjust your criteria in some way and and again be real say you know what we can't afford what we want right now maybe this is going to be a stop Gap home for a few years while we save up money while I hopefully get some raises and then can afford more house in the future and then we'll just move in a few years from now maybe that's maybe that's the case or maybe you just need to to to back out for a little bit and put a plan in place for affording a more expensive home it's really important that this is all planned out because if you just say you know what we just can't afford a house right now we're just going to have to to back out and just enter the market another time I've got bad news for you the market is not going to it it's not going to depreciate in value we're not going to see homes it's very unlikely very very very unlikely that homes are going to go down in value anytime soon and so if you back out of the market and then assume you can enter back in the market in two years you might find homes have gone up 20% in value in the areas that you're looking for for houses in you might find that they're now 20% more expensive well do you have 20% more money have has your salary gone up by 20% in two years it probably hasn't for a lot of people it hasn't and and and won't and so very careful before making an emotional decision of oh we we just can't afford it that doesn't mean there's kind of an assumption we can't afford it now but we will in the future and and that's a very very big assumption and that's an assumption that may not be rooted in reality you have to be real about the market but also there's an aspect to being real about the market and I see this a lot I can't tell you how often I see this particularly with people that you know work more Blue Collar jobs and and and come from backgrounds that that didn't have as much money but they will operate under kind of more of a doomsday perspective constantly coming at things from the standpoint of and maybe they don't even realize this but essentially they're coming from the standpoint of well what if the market crashes tomorrow or what if my home starts losing value again we just talked about from an outsider perspective the unlikelihood of homes to depreciating but what about your house what's the likelihood of your house depreciating losing value let me start with this it's not likely it's not likely and this is also a way that we cannot be real about the market and and by the way it's a perspective that very frequently irritates spouses because they're like why are we operating under this assumption this doomsday scenario because we don't use this logic in other parts of our lives do you have a homestead to produce food in case the economy goes into Global depression and and nobody has food or maybe you know like the Interstellar movie we've got this you know blight taking over the world and now we're having to move to another planet because we've depleted our planet of resources do you operate under that assumption that could happen it could happen why don't we operate under those assumptions do you have a stockpile of gold in case the US dollar completely loses all of its buying power well I I have to admit I do know a person or two that that has that but by and large the average person doesn't have that the people that I'm hearing talking about you know well what if the market crashes what if you know what if my house loses value right after I purchase it these people don't have gold in stockpiles in their houses let me tell you I I I can assure you of that do do you have a bunker prepared for a nuclear apocalypse no why why why don't you have a bunker prepared for for nuclear fallout is it because the possibility of a nuclear apocalypse is really low I would argue that the possibility for a nuclear apocalypse is really high there's like a bunch of countries just sitting on nukes that could could blow our our world into Oblivion what is the likelihood that one of those countries decides to pull the trigger at some point I'd say it's a decent decent possibility but we don't live with bunkers you know anymore now now back in you know in the Cold War era that was people actually did that but I would say there's more likelihood of of something like that happening now than even back in the Cold War but but we don't live with bunkers so why why is it why is it that we don't do these things it's because we look at history and we see those events are very unlikely we see that famines are unlikely so we don't stockpile food we see that Global depressions are unlikely we see that hyperinflation that causes US dollar to completely lose all of its value that that type of thing doesn't have a whole lot of historical precedent it does have some it doesn't have a lot of historical precedent there's yes nukes have been used before but it hasn't been used very often so we operate under the assumption that it's not likely to happen in the future well guess what a housing market crash and even more so a housing market crash that causes homes in the upstate to permanently lose value for a long time is very very unlikely very unlikely the the the most recent time that we had this happen with us in 2008 everyone knows about this this is why people have it in their minds that it's going to happen again even when that happened in 2008 homes in the upstate on a meta level more or less flatlined in value they did not lose value and they started picking up value very quickly and that was a housing market crash that was a global recession that that happened in primarily in large Parts and I'm I'm no Economist but what I understand is that a lot of it happened because of the housing market the housing market was the first Domino to fall that caused the the the global economy to go into recession so where is the data where is the data that says that this is going to happen again that it's very likely to happen again in the near future there's not much data so if you're basing your doomsday scenario assumptions off of actual data you're not you're not being real you're not being real about the market if you're going in with this doomsday scenario type of thinking now it's good to have contingency plans it's great to have contingency plans but those contingency plans should look at things from a realistic perspective last but not least make sure you're in agreement with each other you and your spouse on your long-term housing goals is the next home a home for a few years or is it for the long term is this where we're going to retire is this where we're going to raise our kids make sure that you're in agreement over that because that impacts a whole lot of things if it is long-term think reasonably about about what your family will be like in a few years and what you can afford all right you you need to not just be looking at the here and now you need to be looking in the future and not just looking in the future again from that doomsday scenario of what if I lose a job what if this happens what if that happens you just that's not a way to to plan that and that's really not planning at all that's that's speculating it's not even educated speculation I don't know how many times I want to say this but I want to say this a lot you cannot eliminate risk from future planning you can't you cannot not plan risk out of your your your decisions for your family you know I I see some clients that try to do this by trying to get rid of as much debt as possible because to them debt is risk listen there's a whole lot of other risks out there besides debt you can't eliminate all of those things and whomever is the more risk averse person between the two of you needs to try to focus more on preparing for the likely scenarios while also ensuring that you don't buy more house than you can afford so don't look at the unlikely scenarios and plan based on that look at the likely scenarios but also you know maybe you can afford a $700,000 house but that would be the absolute top end of what you can afford using multiple metrics so so back off a little bit you don't you don't need to buy the absolute top of what you can afford back off a little bit and make sure that that you are doing exercising wisdom in terms of your decision making the more risk tolerant person needs to see the value in having contingency plans and be willing to make personal sacrifices as a show of good faith while also looking at the housing data out there to make reasonable conclusions from it in terms of you know where the market is going and how that might impact you and your family and and so this is where you you both have to look at it from each other's perspectives and make sure that you that you do accomplish what you're looking to do lifestyle-wise while also not buying way more house than you can afford and and also not assuming that you won't be able to afford it in the future you can't operate under the assumption that you won't be able to afford something in the future if you can afford it now now where people get in trouble is when they buy more house than they can afford now under the assumption that they will be able to afford it in the future that I highly recommend you don't do that that's what happened in 2000 in the Years leading up to 2008 don't do that don't do that but but don't operate under the assumption that you won't be able to afford a house in the future that you can now that is not a reasonable way to go about it in the end this spousal partner negotiation you have to respect and trust each other even in your disagreement sometimes this negotiation involves looking at multiple homes I see this a lot that you know sometimes Partners they they don't even fully understand what they agree or disagree on and what you know the terms quote unquote of their negotiation are going to be until they start looking at homes and then they start to understand it because that's a real thing in front of them they can actually see what the home looks like what homes in their quote unquote budget are and and now they they're actually working through okay this is what we want this is what we need this is what we can afford and and I'm you know I I have some people sometimes that apologize like I'm we're so sorry that that you know we're trying to it's taking us a while to figure out what we want what we need and there's no need to apologize for that this is a part of the process you have to start looking at homes to even find where that Baseline is for what you guys want and as I said before me as a realtor I I just try to be a soundboard and I try to help people in these you know when spouses are apart on what they're looking for and what they're wanting to do I try to be a soundboard just to help them to better understand each other and hopefully come closer together in terms of understanding each other and in terms of their goals and then as we start to look at more houses and as I start to understand the the spousal dynamics that play maybe at that point I can become a little bit more bold in terms of saying I don't think that this really accomplishes what this spouse wants or this doesn't look like the type of house that you would want or this you know I don't know that this is going to fit into your long-term goals I don't I'm very careful with how I word that because I don't ever want to be the decision maker for my clients I want at the end of the day they have to make the decision one way or the other but I tried to to help be U an advocate for both of them or you know there might be more an advocate for all of them to make sure that everyone at the end is is happy and pleased and satisfied with how it all worked out and that nobody is angry at each other that's the main thing I don't want I don't want anyone to to be angry you know to leave a showing frustrated and angry that their spouse their part wasn't listening to them we don't want that and so I tried to help as much as I can without getting too much into the Weeds on the personal dynamics that play that's what I do as a realtor and and that is some things to think about if you are in the process of negotiating things with your spouse with your partner in terms of looking to move or maybe just in general maybe this was helpful on a more General plane I don't know you guys can let me know the best way to let me know is by leaving some feedback rating review Etc on the show if you don't have my contact information that's in the show notes I appreciate you guys listening and until next time stay safe and negotiate fair with each other [Music]