NovTwo complete proposals can be better than “a little less”
Discuss price, contents and timing as viable packages, without offering a payment or handover commitment the parties have not confirmed.
This article reflects the named expert’s practical perspective. See NovAsia’s editorial policy for how material is prepared and reviewed.
“A little less” can become an endless negotiation position because it says nothing about what else the buyer is willing to change. Price matters, but it sits alongside timing, contents, payment readiness and handover conditions. Sometimes the conversation becomes more useful when the seller receives two complete proposals that represent two real ways the buyer could proceed.
I do not see this as a tactic for manufacturing leverage. Both proposals have to be executable. A fast payment is not a bargaining chip if the buyer cannot reliably make it. An early handover request is not meaningful if the seller has not confirmed that the property can be vacant. A package built from conditions nobody can perform is just a temporary negotiating advantage that will create a problem later.
Before shaping alternatives, it helps to understand what may matter to the seller. That could be timing, certainty, retaining certain contents, allowing an occupier to leave, or simply keeping the process straightforward. Those motivations should be discovered through the conversation rather than invented. The objective is to find areas where changing one term creates real value for the other side.
Keep both proposals real
Each proposal should answer the same basic questions: what transfers, at what price, on what timeline, and subject to which preliminary conditions. That makes them comparable. If one price assumes furniture is included and the other silently assumes it is removed, the numbers are not describing the same transaction.
An illustrative example might be a lower price with a schedule that is convenient for the seller, versus a price closer to asking with specific contents left in place and a handover date that solves the buyer's move. The seller may reject both, choose one, or make a different counterproposal. The value of the structure is that everyone can see which terms changed and why.
This approach can also reveal that the buyer's original focus on price was too narrow. A seller may be firm on the amount but flexible on something that would cost the buyer time and money after completion. In another deal, the non-price concessions may have little value and the buyer is right to keep the discussion centred on the number. The point is to test the actual combination, not to assume that every concession is valuable.
Conditions involving third parties need special care. A vacant early handover may depend on an occupier. Certain equipment may belong to an operator. A rapid payment may depend on banking steps or document review. Until the dependency is confirmed, I would not treat it as an available concession in the package.
Two proposals also force the buyer to define their own limits. What is the maximum amount? Which date can actually be met? Which contents matter? What is negotiable and what would make the purchase stop working? Without those answers, negotiations can drift through a series of small concessions until the final combination no longer resembles the buyer's original plan.
There is no need to create a menu of ten packages. Too many combinations make it harder to understand what the seller is responding to and invite confusion over which terms belong together. One main proposal and one genuinely different alternative are often enough to expose the important trade.
I also want the buyer to be comfortable with either proposal before it is sent. If one is included only to make the other look attractive, the same decoy problem appears in negotiation form. The seller may choose the option the buyer never really wanted, leaving the buyer to retreat from their own offer.
Any commercial understanding for a Siem Reap property still needs suitable documentation and the necessary legal review. Until the terms are properly recorded, I treat them as an agreed direction for the transaction, not as a guarantee that every point will be performed exactly as discussed.
The lowest price is not always the most useful outcome. Sometimes a slightly higher amount gives the buyer a better handover, useful contents or greater certainty. Sometimes nothing the seller can offer compensates for the gap and the buyer should walk away. Two complete proposals are valuable because they reveal the choice in full instead of pretending the whole deal fits into one number.