How to Negotiate a Home Offer

Patricia Golden is not the kind of woman you low ball with a home offer. After purchasing a home in Richmond, Va. for under $100,000, Golden decided to flip it for a tidy profit.

"I was working in Washington, D.C. at the time and hoping to transfer to Richmond, so I was only living in the house on weekends," the retired federal worker recounts. "It took me three years to fix up and when it was done, I was determined to make some money."

After putting the house on the market, Golden got a home offer quickly, but it didn't meet Golden's financial benchmarks.

"They originally wanted to give me somewhere around $106,000 for the house, but we negotiated it up to $115,000," Golden says. "I'm lucky I had an agent who was willing to help me get the price up to where I wanted it to be."

Golden got lucky in the negotiation process, but many sellers don't. For those who aren't well-versed in the fine art of negotiation, selling your house, especially settling on an appropriate home price with a buyer, can be scary. Here are a few tips from the experts.