Successful Haggling

[GCJayhawker]

I had a milestone moment in my life last night. Had my first real successful haggle. I need a new couch and all the furniture store sin Topeka are having crazy good deals because they are all moving into the mall.  Apparently it is better to sell the existing furniture way marked down than to actually move it to the new store. Anyway the lady friend and I were looking at a couch that was originally $1,300 but was marked down to $750. I stroll up to the salesman and let him know I like the couch but not for that price and offer a cool $600 cash for the couch. The sales guy thinks about it for a second and says we have a deal. I played it calm while we finished up the transaction, but once we were outside I was all  .

This got me thinking, what great haggling stories does the gE crowd have. Let's hear how everyone is all  because they saved so much money.

[OK_Cat]

he bought that couch for $200, you still lost.

[puniraptor]

I'm not sure what you did was haggling. You made an offer that you both found immediately acceptable.

[steve dave]

yes, that was pud tier negotiating. but that's the best kind if you got your terms.

[OK_Cat]

if you got him to throw in an ottoman for free, then this thread might be a little better.

[ben ji]

The key to successfull haggling is to not give a crap whether they take your offer or not.

[pissclams]

i love a good couch.  can't think of any good haggling stories though.

[puniraptor]

I sold a papasan chair on craigslist. I listed it for $75. This girl comes to look at it and says "I'll give you $50."

I was like "well I already had another person offer me the $75 and they can pick it up tomorrow. You were the first to contact me so I wanted to make sure you get the first chance to buy it."

She happily paid the $75 AND THE TWIST IS THERE WAS NO OTHER OFFER

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

got my 5 series marked down over $6000 AND no payment for the first 6 months. probably the best negotiating ive ever done

[steve dave]

AND no payment for the first 6 months

welp

[Mikeyis4dcats]

he bought that couch for $200, you still lost.    that couch was only $800 a month ago.

FTFY

[sonofdaxjones]

got my 5 series marked down over $6000 AND no payment for the first 6 months. probably the best negotiating ive ever done

. . . and in the sales meeting that morning they said something like, "if you've got a guy on the hook for a 5 series, we're getting (insert amount of money here) back from BMW North America for moving (X) amount of those this quarter, so if someone pushes a little, we'll take $5 to $6k off the sticker and they'll feel really good about it."

[Mikeyis4dcats]

Jamie Winter says they're having a mmmmmmassive  MMmmmmoving sale.

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

got my 5 series marked down over $6000 AND no payment for the first 6 months. probably the best negotiating ive ever done

. . . and in the sales meeting that morning they said something like, "if you've got a guy on the hook for a 5 series, we're getting (insert amount of money here) back from BMW North America for moving (X) amount of those this quarter, so if someone pushes a little, we'll take $5 to $6k off the sticker and they'll feel really good about it."

hmm... i dont think so. i had to try like, really hard to get them to take the extra $6k off the sticker price. oh and i forgot to mention they took an extra couple of days to get me the car because they put sport pedals on it instead of the normal pedals as an extra "perk"

unless you are a bmw salesman or own a bmw, i dont think you know what youre talking about here. i got a kick ass deal.

[sonofdaxjones]

got my 5 series marked down over $6000 AND no payment for the first 6 months. probably the best negotiating ive ever done

. . . and in the sales meeting that morning they said something like, "if you've got a guy on the hook for a 5 series, we're getting (insert amount of money here) back from BMW North America for moving (X) amount of those this quarter, so if someone pushes a little, we'll take $5 to $6k off the sticker and they'll feel really good about it."

hmm... i dont think so. i had to try like, really hard to get them to take the extra $6k off the sticker price. oh and i forgot to mention they took an extra couple of days to get me the car because they put sport pedals on it instead of the normal pedals as an extra "perk"

unless you are a bmw salesman or own a bmw, i dont think you know what youre talking about here. i got a kick ass deal.

They are in business to make money, so I likely overstated the ease in which they "caved" (or made you think they did).   

[The Tonya Harding of Twitter Users Creep]

got my 5 series marked down over $6000 AND no payment for the first 6 months. probably the best negotiating ive ever done

. . . and in the sales meeting that morning they said something like, "if you've got a guy on the hook for a 5 series, we're getting (insert amount of money here) back from BMW North America for moving (X) amount of those this quarter, so if someone pushes a little, we'll take $5 to $6k off the sticker and they'll feel really good about it."

hmm... i dont think so. i had to try like, really hard to get them to take the extra $6k off the sticker price. oh and i forgot to mention they took an extra couple of days to get me the car because they put sport pedals on it instead of the normal pedals as an extra "perk"

unless you are a bmw salesman or own a bmw, i dont think you know what youre talking about here. i got a kick ass deal.

They are in business to make money, so I likely overstated the ease in which they "caved" (or made you think they did).

yeah i guess the more i think about it the car does have a back right window that wont roll down. might be a lemon?

[CNS]

GCJ, great job, man.  Feels great I bet.

[lopakman]

I negotiate on everything.  My all time best haggle was on our house. I haggled over 30k off a spec home and got the builder to take our old house as part of the deal so we didn't have to put it on the market and pay realtor fees.

The developer was in default with the bank but he was also the builder of this particular home and didn't want to lose it to the bank.  I went in with an offer of $299,500 and said this is what I'm willing to pay as my only and final offer.  He rejected it and countered with what was actually still a really good deal.  Our agent pushed us to take it but I'm cheap and stubborn so I declined and told our agent to find us a different house. 

A few days later our agent called and said that the builder was willing to try and work something out.  He agreed to do a builder trade so he took our old home for less than what it was worth, but because of the cost savings on realtor fees we got about 2k more out of it than we would have accepted. 

Here's the best part.  The builder was a huge dick and kept trying to get us to do all this work on our old house that didn't need to be done and we almost backed out of the deal but we eventually got him to back down and moved forward.  We had to close on our old house first so we could get the money for the down payment on the new house.  So three days after we closed on our old house we were still living in it waiting for all the bank transfers to get processed when a major hail storm rolled through.  It tore up the roof, messed with the siding, shredded the window screens, etc.  Even though we were sill living there the builder had taken ownership three days earlier so all the repairs were on him.  We later heard he hadn't insured the house yet after buying it from us which he could do because he came in with a cash offer.  So all the storm repairs came out of his pocket.  I bet he was all like  while I was like 

A few days later we moved into our brand new home and since then the subdivsion has been sold to a new developer who is flush with cash. 

[lopakman]

The key to successfull haggling is to not give a crap whether they take your offer or not.

You are absolutely correct.  This is the best advice you could give anyone when it comes to haggling.

[lopakman]

KSC, is your car not under warranty?  I thought at one point you said it was a 2010.  Does BMW not do CPO on their used cars?  I have a 2010 Lexus and it came with a three year 36k warranty from the date of my purchase.  Just wondering because I was looking at a BMW for my wife.

[StevieWonderSniperSchool]

got my 5 series

mods, please change KSC's name to bmwcat. tia

[jmlynch1]

I do my best negotiating when I am aimlessly wandering foreign countries with limited language skills. I absolutely destroyed Brazil once.

[yoga-like_abana]

I do my best negotiating when I am aimlessly wandering foreign countries with limited language skills. I absolutely destroyed Brazil once.

bingo.. yeah you'll throw in 5 extra eiffel tower key rings and you'll rough ridin' like it

[CNS]

I negotiate on everything.  My all time best haggle was on our house. I haggled over 30k off a spec home and got the builder to take our old house as part of the deal so we didn't have to put it on the market and pay realtor fees.

The developer was in default with the bank but he was also the builder of this particular home and didn't want to lose it to the bank.  I went in with an offer of $299,500 and said this is what I'm willing to pay as my only and final offer.  He rejected it and countered with what was actually still a really good deal.  Our agent pushed us to take it but I'm cheap and stubborn so I declined and told our agent to find us a different house. 

A few days later our agent called and said that the builder was willing to try and work something out.  He agreed to do a builder trade so he took our old home for less than what it was worth, but because of the cost savings on realtor fees we got about 2k more out of it than we would have accepted. 

Here's the best part.  The builder was a huge dick and kept trying to get us to do all this work on our old house that didn't need to be done and we almost backed out of the deal but we eventually got him to back down and moved forward.  We had to close on our old house first so we could get the money for the down payment on the new house.  So three days after we closed on our old house we were still living in it waiting for all the bank transfers to get processed when a major hail storm rolled through.  It tore up the roof, messed with the siding, shredded the window screens, etc.  Even though we were sill living there the builder had taken ownership three days earlier so all the repairs were on him.  We later heard he hadn't insured the house yet after buying it from us which he could do because he came in with a cash offer.  So all the storm repairs came out of his pocket.  I bet he was all like  while I was like 

A few days later we moved into our brand new home and since then the subdivsion has been sold to a new developer who is flush with cash.

That is a great one. 

[Winters]

I usually act like I'm deaf and just hand the person a crisp one dollar bill. Works every time.