Patience and Timing
A quick word first
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A long courtship
Sometimes to get what you want in a negotiation you’ve got to make a blow-out offer, something so big that competing buyers don’t dare to top your price. By definition, of course, that means you probably overpaid. But in other cases, just putting a toe in the water and being patient can be all that’s required. That’s how my childhood neighbor Sandy Ritchie bought a beautiful property off the Maine coast.
Sandy already owned a two-acre island nearby, a low-lying pile of granite with sparse vegetation. But it had a place to camp out on, and when the tide was right and the wind was light, he could row over and enjoy being master of his little kingdom.
On the way to his place, Sandy would pass Bold Island, just east of the fishing town of Stonington. It’s a picture-postcard scene with a spruce forest running up above the granite shoreline. There’s even a dock for boats and a comfortable house up among the trees.
Sandy discovered that a widow in upstate New York owned the property. He sent her a letter, introduced himself, and asked her to let him know if she were ever interested in selling. He heard nothing back in return, but the inquiry had cost him only a few minutes of time.
He wrote again the following year. This time he described his family’s love for the ocean and what his young children had been doing in school. Again, no answer. For the next six years, he composed his annual letter, reiterating his interest in the island and updating the owner on family news. Never did he get a reply.
Finally, he sent a note saying that he hoped he hadn’t been a nuisance. He would call, he said, and if she wanted him to stop corresponding, he would respect her wishes. When he called a few days later, a nurse answered and told him that the woman couldn’t come to the phone but that she would like him to keep writing.
Several months later, Sandy received a letter from the owner saying that she was now ready to sell. She asked him to make an offer.
Sandy calculated the most he could afford and sent a proposal, explaining his circumstances. This time the woman herself phoned him to say that she would accept his figure. Sandy was ecstatic. But then the next day, he got a second call, this time from the woman’s lawyer, saying that the deal was off because his bid was far less than the appraised value.
Sandy wrote back to the owner that he understood the circumstances, but his offer was the best he could do given his family obligations. Two days later, the woman overruled her lawyer. Putting Bold Island in the hands of someone who loved it just as much as she did was more important to her than money. Sandy now has been there every summer since it he bought it twenty years ago.
All it took to negotiate purchasing one of the jewels of the Maine coast was ten postage stamps—and a decade’s worth of patience.
Housekeeping
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