Hi there, my friend.
When it comes to buying a home, “So many people assume that whatever has been presented to them — a price, a repair response, a commission, a closing date, a financing structure — is the only available path. It often isn’t.”
That bit of wisdom comes from my friend Lauren Bowling, an Atlanta-based Realtor who spent a decade running an award-winning personal-finance blog before diving fully into real estate. I interviewed Lauren for my book and quoted her in it multiple times. More recently, I reached out to Lauren to get her advice on how people can negotiate and advocate for themselves in today’s housing market. I wasn’t disappointed.
As I’ve said many times, here at Ask, Save, Earn, we’re all about helping people pay less, earn more and keep more of their hard-earned money by asking the right questions in various everyday situations. However, the truth is that those questions are rarely more important than when you’re buying or selling a home. That’s because a home is the most expensive purchase most Americans will ever make. Even relatively small concessions negotiated on the price, interest rate and other terms of the deal can lead to thousands, sometimes even tens of thousands, of dollars in savings over the life of the loan.
How do you go about doing it, though? What works and what doesn’t? After years in the trenches of the housing market, Lauren had a lot to share on those topics and more. Scroll down to read through the edited transcript of our email conversation.
Matt Schulz: First, tell us a little about yourself and what you do.
Lauren Bowling: I’m an Atlanta Realtor specializing in the city’s in-town neighborhoods, and a big part of my business is helping people relocate to Atlanta from out of state. Before real estate, I spent more than a decade writing about personal finance, including running an award-winning personal finance blog, so my career has really always centered around helping people make smart, confident decisions with their money. Now I just do it in a context where the numbers are bigger and the decisions are often much more emotional.
MS: My newsletter is about helping people pay less, earn more and keep more of their hard-earned money by asking the right questions in various everyday situations. There are few times when asking questions and advocating for yourself is more important than when you buy or sell a home, but it can be hard to know when to speak up. If you had to give one “ask” that applies to almost every real estate transaction, what would it be? And what’s one thing (or more if you have them) that buyers or sellers rarely ask that they should?
LB: The single best question is: “What options do I have here?”
So many people assume that whatever has been presented to them — a price, a repair response, a commission, a closing date, a financing structure — is the only available path. It often isn’t.
You may not ultimately get everything you ask for, but you should understand what can be changed, what can be negotiated and what tradeoffs come with each option. In real estate, there is almost always a workaround or a way for things to come together that makes sense for everyone.
MS: Is there a particular negotiating tactic you’ve seen, or that you’ve used yourself, that always seems to backfire?
LB: I think nickel-and-diming tends to backfire, especially once both parties have already made meaningful concessions. Negotiating every single small item can create resentment and distract from the issues and “wins” that actually matter. I always want my clients to understand the difference between something being negotiable and something being worth negotiating.
MS: How does someone choose between what’s negotiable and what’s actually worth negotiating? I’m assuming there’s some personal choice involved, but do you have any guidelines or a rule of thumb for what people should consider in that situation?
LB: Something is usually worth negotiating if it affects your ability or willingness to complete the transaction, like a major repair or worry about near-term expense.
‘If the seller says no, do you still want it?’
If the answer is an immediate yes, that doesn’t necessarily mean we shouldn’t ask, but it helps us decide how hard we should push. I also tell clients it may be worth negotiating if you think you might be resentful at closing if we don’t ask.
MS: What’s the biggest negotiating win you’ve been a part of, either as a buyer, seller or agent? What did you learn from it? And is there a big mistake that you still kick yourself about?
LB: I don’t know if I’ve had anything that stands out yet as a big negotiating win or mistake, but I do remember very clearly I had a client (a buyer) who was trying to buy a condo unit and the air was broken. It needed a new HVAC unit, which is expensive, and the seller did not want to cover it.
They were both getting pretty frustrated with one another, and my client wanted me to threaten that they’d cancel the deal if we couldn’t get the air conditioning. I told them once they do that, they have to follow through. We threatened to terminate the deal, and the seller wouldn’t budge, so we terminated — but my client started panicking.
This was in a span of like four hours, mind you.
We submitted the termination paperwork and then immediately after, my client was trying to get me to get the deal back. I told him, ‘Just go to bed. Let’s all sleep on this, and in the morning we can figure it out.’
In the morning, the seller’s agent contacted me and said the seller had a change of heart and would replace the HVAC if we would come back to the table. It felt good to know my advice had won the day for my client.
My biggest lesson: Earlier in my career, I sometimes felt that I needed to push on everything in order to prove I was advocating for my client. I’ve learned that good representation is much more strategic than that. You build credibility by being reasonable about the small things, so that when you say something is important, the other side understands that you mean it.
Three more negotiating lessons from Lauren
“I want to be so dang lovely that people feel bad telling me no.” — Most negotiating advice tells you to bring an edge. Lauren brings a different approach. She’s not soft, and she gets results for her clients in a market where every dollar matters, but she’s found that warmth closes more gaps than pressure does. “Negotiating well does not mean being aggressive, adversarial or difficult,” she said. “Some of the best negotiators I know are warm, calm and deeply curious. It’s how I strive to be for my clients.” Remember that the next time you assume you have to get tough to get anywhere.
“The best way to approach [negotiating real estate commissions] is with curiosity rather than treating it like a demand for an automatic discount.” — That's good advice well beyond real estate. Rather than saying, “Will you lower your fee?” start by asking what the fee includes and whether there are different service or compensation structures available. Questions like those open the door to a real discussion.
“Don’t get so focused on ‘winning’ that you lose sight of what you actually want.” — Paying the lowest price or getting the biggest credit is not a win if you end up losing the house you wanted over an amount you won’t remember five years from now, she says. Likewise, getting the highest possible offer is not a win if the terms make the transaction far more likely to fall apart. Know what success looks like for you before the negotiation begins.
In case you missed it…
Ask, Save, Earn is growing like crazy. We now have about 50% more subscribers than when the year began, and we’re not showing any signs of slowing down.
With that in mind, I wanted to share a post from 2025 that holds a special place in my heart, in case you missed it or just hadn’t joined our community yet.
It is all about one of those teachable moments that we parents cherish so much and try our best to take advantage of. This one involved Pokemon cards.
I must confess, I don’t really miss those days when he was tiny — the great kid turned into an amazing 20-year-old, somehow — but that doesn’t mean the memories from that time don’t still make me smile.
I hope you enjoy the post.
Until next time!
Matt