Using Silence in a Real Estate Negotiation
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When I put a number on the table, I stop talking. That is the whole technique, and it is probably the most productive thing in my toolkit. Most people cannot sit in a silence, and what they reach for to fill it is almost never useful to them.
The whole technique, in one sentence
When I put a number on the table, I stop talking.
That is it. There is no second half. It is the least sophisticated thing in my entire toolkit and it is probably the most productive, and I am aware of how strange that sounds coming from somebody with half a dozen negotiation designations.
Most people cannot sit in a silence. It is genuinely uncomfortable, and the discomfort builds fast — four seconds feels like twenty. So they fill it. And what people reach for when they fill a silence is almost never useful to them. They explain. They justify. They soften a position nobody attacked. They volunteer context.
They negotiate against themselves, and they have no idea they are doing it.
The sentence that cost a buyer twenty-three thousand dollars
I had a listing, and a buyer's agent called me about it.
I asked her a question — an ordinary one, about what her buyers were looking for in the neighbourhood — and then I did the thing. I waited.
She filled the gap. And what she filled it with was that the house was a few doors down from her buyer's sister, and that the two of them had talked for years about living on the same street.
I want to be fair to her: she was being friendly. She thought she was building rapport, and in most professions that instinct is correct.
But the moment she said it, I knew something she did not intend to tell me. These buyers were not going to walk away over money. This was not a house to them, it was a specific address that could not be substituted. My very next thought was completely unsentimental: these people are paying full price.
That one sentence, offered into a pause, put roughly $23,000 more in my sellers' pockets at settlement than they would otherwise have seen.
She never knew. Her clients certainly never knew. They will assume to this day that the market was simply tight that spring.
Why it works
A silence creates an obligation that nobody agreed to.
Conversation has a rhythm, and when you break the rhythm the other person's instinct is to repair it. They assume the gap means something — that you are unhappy, or unconvinced, or about to say no — and they start trying to fix a problem you never stated. In the process they hand you their reasoning, their flexibility, or their timeline.
The other reason it works is that it costs nothing and cannot be countered. There is no defence against a person who is simply listening. An aggressive move invites an aggressive response; a question can be deflected. Saying nothing produces no friction at all, which is exactly why it does not feel like a technique to the person it is being used on.
It cuts both ways, and that is the point
I do not tell that story to be clever about it. I tell it because it should change who you hire.
If you are buying a house, the person representing you can hand your entire position to the other side in one warm, well-intentioned sentence on the phone. You will never find out that it happened. There is no receipt. You will simply pay more, and the explanation you are given will be that the market was competitive.
So ask whoever you are interviewing what they say about you to the other side, and more importantly, what they know to keep to themselves. An agent who has thought about this will answer immediately and in detail. An agent who has not will tell you they are a great communicator, which is precisely the problem.
The disciplined version of that phone call — collecting without spending — is its own subject in prospecting for information.
How to use it without being unpleasant
This is where people get it wrong, so let me be specific. Silence is not coldness and it is not a power game. Used badly it makes you look rude or evasive, and that costs you more than it gains.
A few things I actually do:
- I stay warm while I wait. The silence is in the words, not in the face or the tone. I am not glaring at anybody.
- I use it after I have given information, not instead of giving it. I answer the question fully, then stop. That is a very different thing from stonewalling.
- I let it break naturally. If the other side says nothing either, fine. Two professionals thinking is not a crisis.
- I never use it to avoid a straight answer. If I am asked something I cannot disclose, I say that plainly. Hiding behind a pause is how you lose the working relationship you will need for the next sixty days.
What to do when it is used on you
You will feel it. There is a particular quality to a deliberate pause and once you have noticed it a few times you will recognise it immediately.
The counter is simple and slightly boring: decide in advance what you are willing to say, say it, and then let the quiet be the other person's problem. You are allowed to sit in it. You are allowed to say "I will wait for your response" and then actually wait.
The trap is the reflex to add a sweetener that nobody asked for. That reflex is the entire vulnerability. If you catch yourself starting a sentence with "we could probably also..." you are in it.
The harder version of the same skill
There is a cousin to this that is considerably more difficult than staying quiet after a number: staying quiet when somebody is being aggressive at you.
Aggression feels like strength, and it looks like strength to a client watching from the sidelines. But an agent who gets loud has stopped negotiating and started reacting, and the other side can always tell. I have been on calls where the other agent raised their voice for ten minutes while I said almost nothing, and we came away with every term we had asked for.
I am not naturally serene about that. Twenty-five years in, I still have to fight myself on it, nearly every deal. Which is the encouraging part, honestly — it means this is a skill rather than a temperament, and a skill can be practised and brought to your transaction deliberately.
Where people get stuck
Clients get stuck thinking their job in a negotiation is to be persuasive. It is usually to be quiet and let their agent be precise.
Agents get stuck because talking feels like working. A silent minute does not look like service, so the temptation is to fill it with reassurance, and reassurance is made of information.
The whole approach sits inside the complete guide to real estate negotiation in Southern Maryland.
Frequently Asked Questions
A pause creates an obligation nobody agreed to. People assume it signals a problem and start trying to fix one you never stated, handing over their reasoning or flexibility in the process.
A buyer's agent filled a pause by revealing that her buyers wanted the house because the buyer's sister lived a few doors away. That told Dawn the buyers would not walk over price, and it produced $23,000 more for her sellers.
Not when it is used well. It means answering a question fully and then stopping, rather than filling the gap with information nobody asked for. Using it to dodge a straight question damages the working relationship.
Decide in advance what you are willing to say, say it, and let the quiet be the other person's problem. The trap is the reflex to add a sweetener nobody requested.
Ask what they say about you to the other side, and what they know to keep to themselves. An agent who has thought about it will answer immediately and in detail.
It is the harder version of it. An agent who gets loud has stopped negotiating and started reacting, and the other side can always tell.
Ask Me What I Would Say About You
And what I would keep to myself. It is a fair question to ask any agent before you hire them, and I enjoy answering it.
Dawn Riley
Associate Broker, Realtor, Master Certified Negotiator
The Riley Team at Deep Roots Real Estate
410-414-2438
dawn@dawnriley.net
https://dawnriley.net/