Everything Is Negotiable, If You Just Know How
If there is one blessing in this awful economy it’s that everything is negotiable. Don’t expect that just because something is advertised at a certain price that a seller won’t take less or be willing to throw in some perk to get you to buy. Buyers, with ready cash, are few and far between, even though the picture is definitely getting better. For now, you still have the option to snag some great deals, if you learn the art of bargaining. This applies to areas like housing, maintenance, and even debt management.
Fix Your Credit
Everyone’s credit score took a bit of a ding during this tough economy. What may not be so obvious is that millions have also be offered ways to fix their scores by closing accounts and getting lower interest rates that will allow them to pay off their debt much faster. Even for those that that didn’t bother to call their lenders and negotiate the terms of their debt, and have bad credit, options like a no credit check payday loan are still available to help them rebuild their credit. If you are in debt, now is the time to start negotiating it with your creditors. Once the economy makes a full recovery, they will be less apt to be worried you won’t pay them back because millions of others will. Take advantage of this time period to get your economic house in order.
Bargain Your Way To Better Digs
If your apartment is raising the rent, now is the time to look around. At the very least, if you find something, you can negotiate a lower rental price with your existing landlord by using it as a comparison price. Another way to negotiate your way into better digs is to take advantage of the homebuyers credit, whether you would be a new or existing homebuyer. If your credit is in decent shape, but you are short of funds, don’t worry. You can negotiate your way into the funds by leveraging the equity in a home to get the seller to pay closing costs or even part of the downpayment. If a seller is selling now, it’s because they either want to upgrade, using the same credit, or they are distressed. Very few sellers are going to put their house on the market, if they think they can get a better price for it a few years down the line, when the economy is in better shape. Thus, you know whomever you’re dealing with is a motivated seller at this time.
Maintenance and Home Improvement
Barter is a word that has come back into fashion. Maybe you don’t have the money to pay someone to add laminate flooring to your house. The economy has made it hard for people in the home improvement field to sell their inventory and get sufficient work. Many unemployed people have skills in this area, but don’t have certification or business connections. You can negotiate some good services through bulletin boards like Craigslist.com in the barter area. You can buy materials from places like Habitat For Humanity stores, and just pay for labor. This will offer you a discount on recycled materials, as well as set you up to make further savings on the labor. A business that gets the materials will actually mark them up, instead of discounting them before adding additional labor costs. Once you pick a laborer, just be sure to see examples of their prior work, including some references, before you hire anyone to do work in your home. You don’t want to pay for work that is shoddy or incomplete, so be careful whom you choose. A good deal is only that way if you get what you traded for, not what the final price or bargain came out to be.
If you do decide to go with a professional outfit, you can still bargain your way to savings either on the price of your purchase, on installation, or delivery. Buying appliances for instance, might qualify you for a rebate from the government and state through incentive programs. That’s one sort of discount, and one that doesn’t need anything more than appropriate paperwork to claim. After that, you can look at getting discounts from the seller, based on comparison of other appliances in your area. You can also seek out free shipping or installation or waste removal. Any of these can easily save you between $50 to $100 on additional costs to get something from the store back to your house and installed.
This entry was posted on Tuesday, January 19th, 2010 at 11:24 am and is filed under Financial Planning. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.
