And making assumptions can be deadly…like life and death deadly as I learned while working in high hazard processes.
Assume nothing. Explore all potentialities and possibilities.
I never said a seller had to take the first offer he/she was presented with…(this is an assumption).
The second assumption is that you don’t know if the potential buyer really a “tire kicker” or if the buyer is exploring the firmness of the seller’s price point.
About 36 years ago I bought a proven advanced 3-Day Eventer for $3500 when the horse had been listed for $15k. I still have the cancelled check. That seller had her personal reasons for coming down in price.
Ditto for a GP dressage horse that a friend bought…except that one had taken the owner to the PanAm selection trials and was listed at $35k.
Sellers have different reasons for “adjusting price.” Sellers are NOT obligated to adjust their price…But buyers have every right to explore pricing flexibility.
And I still believe that the COTH article on “etiquette” for buying a horse does a disservice to the horse community. The author of that piece obviously has not bought/sold real-estate. Another illiquid commodity that is loaded with emotional baggage.
I should also state that for one of my horses, I know I probably paid a bit more than he was “worth” but I offered to pay the full asking price if they would ship him to me. I was not the best at negotiating back then. I’ve learned a lot!
I am guessing that these deals materialized through alternative means and not the following process:
View ad for horse
Try horse and like horse
Offer seller $3500 for a $15k horse and have seller immediately accept.
in other words, you did not “explore flexibility” you already knew the seller would take substantially less for their own reasons.
Everyone has these stories and they love to share them online. That doesn’t mean they are frequent occurrences and I would argue it is much simpler to understand what the market looks like now than it was 40 years ago. I can sell a horse 3000 miles away with almost zero effort. That was not true then. I think it’s a mistake to apply something that was true 40 years ago to today’s market or buying process.
a serious buyer will recognize that my refusal to counter or consider their lowball offer means that I am not flexible to that degree and they will either make an offer in the realm of reasonable or walk away. That is still negotiating. The attitude that sellers are required to engage with the craigslist mentality that everything can be had for free is also an assumption.
Again…making assumptions. I had not clue what buyer was willing to take.
I was very young and a noob at horse buying. Although I had ridden other people’s horses, the $15K eventer was my first purchase and, went like this.
I go looking to buy first horse.....and find out about this horse.
I talk to seller and get price & go away to think about it
I ride the horse and like it
I don't have the internet to consult so I talk some folks who bring up issues of age (12 yrs) & sex gelding.
I decide I'm willing to pay $5k
Work colleague says if I'm willing to pay $5k, I should offer less.
I offered $3500 expecting a counter.
Seller gagged....I recall an obvious physical reaction.....then accepted the offer.
I got the horse.
Horse died of a lipoma/strangulated gut at 18 (got put down).
While I agree that social media and internet have broadened the seller's market, there is a trade-off between how fast you can sell a horse and selling price. I got a $3k quote to move a horse cross country....west coast to east coast.
I usually don’t buy from a sale ad. I like to know who I am buying from and find horses thru word of mouth.
Recently (like 9 months ago) I connected some folks who wanted a 1.3m show jumper with a horse that was supposed to go for $75k in a hunter barn. The horse was offered to the the folks I spoke with for $35k…They tried him and he jumped beautifully.
And don’t get me going on the high-end +$100k horses at BNT barns that are unsound and are mis-represented.
I just feel that the COTH article and attitudes like this post send an unrealistic picture of what “negotiating room” is potentially possible.
So I just want people to realize that for the right horse, in the right situation, price variations of +50% are possible.
But…Caveat Emptor. You need to be an educated consumer.
I agree with Soloud on this. I don’t think the seller should be asked or expected to negotiate against themselves (i.e., answer “What do you want for the horse?” or “How much will you take?” when they have already advertised it at a listed price). I don’t sell horses often but I occasionally sell other things on Craigslist and find it really annoying when people email just to ask, “What’s the lowest you’ll take for Item X?” I’ve already stated a price in the ad, so you can either make an offer or go away.
Now as to the original question, where the ad states “negotiable,” I think an offer 20% below asking price is unlikely to offend. (Obviously there are cases where you can offer much lower and close the deal, but IMO it becomes more risky.)
I wanted to add another perspective as a seller. Two reasons I list “price negotiable”:
Because I don’t want someone who has a budget that’s close, but not quite there, to not come see the horse. Most buyers will up their “max price” a little bit for the right horse. And even when I’m “firm” on a price, I will likewise ALWAYS negotiate at least a little bit for the right home. This part of why I prefer listing price ranges to actual prices. This doesn’t mean that I’ll decide that one home = “a happy home” and another home = “a miserable existence and therefore you’ll pay more.” It means that every now and again a rider comes to try a horse and it’s love at first sight for horse and rider.
Most recently it meant that I had two offers on a horse at the same time and I took a $15k lesser offer because the match was brilliant between Horse A and Rider A and the match was “meh” between Horse A and Rider B. Although I would have liked to have the extra money, there was no doubt in my mind that the horse was going to a fantastic situation with the people with less money. There’s more to the story, of course, that I won’t go into here (I’m not just a super kind hearted horse seller). But in this instance “the right home” was a huge factor to the buyers getting a much-larger-than-I-usually-grant discount.
Another example. I recently had a horse listed in the $60-80k range. I didn’t want someone who had $55k to not bother to come see the horse because they weren’t in my range. Actual asking price of the horse was in the higher end of the range, but for a home where the horse would go into the show ring and be seen I was willing to negotiate…potentially a fair amount…even though I thought the asking price for the horse was absolutely fair for what the horse was. In that instance, the people started with a budget of 35 and they doubled it for this horse. I came down from my price more than I’d planned on as well. Sign that it was a successful negotiation? Neither of us was happy in the end :lol: (though we were all happy with the end result of horse + rider).
My general rule? If someone offered me 40% of the asking price that’s an absolute no go in my book. But if they’re within 10-15% of my price I will usually work something out. And I never mind if someone comes to me with a lowball offer. I will simply tell them “no.” Especially if that lowball offer comes in the form of a first-time contact “will you take 20k for your 80k horse?”
I’m generally open to somewhat flexible payment terms. So if someone is willing to stretch in their budget a bit, I’m usually fine with payments or a deferred/delayed portion of a payment (all with a contract, of course). So another reason I might list “negotiable,” is because I’m willing to negotiate payment terms even if I won’t change the price a whole lot.
As a seller, I would be pretty unhappy for someone who was willing to only spend $5000 to come try my $15000 horse. That’s what I consider a ‘tire kicker’ .
When I was a junior my parents’ budget was 7,500 for my Children’s Hunter moving up from ponies. My trainer had me sit on a 4 yo $20k one (for another student possibly.). My parents watched, good fit and we got him for $15k because he has a coarse head. He took me all the way to the Junior Jumpers and later the Regular Workings with good ribbons. He is buried under my spruce trees but at one point we had a 6 figure offer from an Olympian.
When my my parents saw the difference between 7500 and 20k they did everything to get me the better horse. You never know.
this was more than 2 decades ago and money went farther then too. Now a winning Children’s hunter is six figures.
A tire kicker in my definition is someone who has no intention of buying. I was quite serious about buying this horse…and probably would have moved upwards from my $5k. But seller didn’t counter offer.
Nobody held a gun to the seller’s head. She sold the horse. To me. At the price I initially offered.
Obviously seller made a decision about the cost/value of keeping the horse vs unloading at a cheap price.
My felling in horse buying is nothing ventured, nothing gained.
Seller could have told me to pound sand…and flounced off into the horizon…but she did not.
Yeah - I would have been annoyed you wasted my time riding my 15000 horse knowing you would only spend 5000. I would have sent you on your way. There are way too many people who want to try the more expensive horses with Volkswagen budgets. Unfortunately, there is no way to pre qualify buyers.
If someone had said to me ‘your horse a couple of thousand out of my budget, but I would like to try him’ I would say OK. But not if they were only starting at 1/3 of his price.
The question every seller has to ask is whether they want to move the horse or sit on the horse when you have an interested party willing to buy.
Obviously my seller had her priorities. She could have easily said, “No, my price is firm.” Ok…we would have started another conversation and I would have had to make a big decision.
But based on the fact that she sold me the horse, getting rid of the horse was more important to her than getting her full asking price. And I was probably willing to come up in what I was willing to pay…so I would not eliminate talking to a potential buyer.
The point I am trying to make is that there are situations where the price of a horse is highly elastic based on specific situations. As indicated on the case of a horse that would be priced at $75k in a hunter barn, but was presented at less than half of that as a jumper. Somebody got lucky to be at the right place at the right time.
Horse prices are this big mystery. OP asked what does “price is negotiable” mean.
I am trying to answer that question and publicize some actual cases so people can see cases of what the REAL selling vs asking price is.
Oh…and when I am horse shopping and the first words out of a seller is “What is your budget?”…I walk away.
Seller has property to sell. Tell me what your price is and I will make the decision whether to proceed.
When sellers ask what is my “budget”…then if my “budget” is $30k, $70k, or $150k…the horse that is presented to me will be priced at $30k, $70k, or $150k.
PNWjumper has the most realistic description of a good selling scenario.
I’ve just been shopping and find this (multiple times) is a come on and once you’ve bought the airline ticket and go ride the horses, the price really isn’t negotiable. But your mileage may vary.
Listen, it’s a dance for sure, and there’s no right or wrong answer when it comes right down to it. But people have to AT LEAST start in ranges. As a seller I would like to know, before engaging in long drawn out conversations, what RANGE are you looking in? My price is NOT GOING TO CHANGE based on what you tell me (though I understand the fear from a buyer’s perspective, and I’m sure there are some people who might do just that). If you say “low 6” and my horse is 50k, I will tell you that my horse is less than half your budget and I’ll suggest other sellers’ horses that you might want to look at instead (though you’re absolutely welcome to come look at my horse if that sounds like a good thing - funny story, it almost never happens because people become so set on wanting to spent “x” amount and won’t vary far high or low).
But that initial conversation can be unpleasant anyway. I can’t tell you how many people I get emailing me about my horses who have read the ad (where the price is mentioned as “high 5 figures” or “low 6 figures”) and when I ask them what their budget (RANGE) is, tell me “I don’t want to spend more than $7k.” Sigh. If I tell them the horse is $150k, I will often get a long rant back about how absurd that is and how dare I ask so much money for a horse! Again, sigh. So I would rather head off that conversation and make sure we’re both working in the same ballpark to start with.
On the other hand,tell me your budget is “mid 5 figures” when you’re looking at my high 5-figure horse and I’ll tell you that my horse is most likely outside of your price range. Happy to chat more, and happy to have you sit on it (even if you have no intention of going that high with budget), but I don’t want anyone wasting time. If you tell me your budget is mid/high 5 figures and my horse is high 5 figures, I’ll tell you that my horse is priced at $85k and I would be happy to discuss the price further and that I’m happy to work on terms if it’s slightly outside of range.
And from a seller’s perspective, I often have a hard time putting a hard price on a horse. This is in response to the idea that “you have goods to sell and they’re set at “x” price, so advertise that price!” Most of mine increase in price as I take them to more shows and get an American record put on them. I have been burned several times by advertising a horse at a dollar price and then having someone find an old ad and absolutely insist that I’m trying to screw them over because I told them $85k but they found an ad where I was asking $80k (never mind that it was 4 months/5 horseshows ago and the horse now has numerous wins under its belt).
My ideal scenario is to start with an ad that indicates a price range (e.g. $60-80k or mid-high 5-figures). Then I would like a buyer, who has read and processed that range, to reach out to me and say “I’m looking for a horse in your general range, I’d like to come sit on it.” That can be followed with a “He’s slightly outside of my price range, so are you open to any negotiation?” And from there it’s push and pull always. But it’s common sense that you agree to be close to a certain number before booking airline tickets. If you’ll only spend 50k on my 85k horse, it’s just plain not going to happen. But if you only have 50k now and want to make payments on another 25k, that’s likely something that can be worked out. My point being that “being willing to negotiate” does not mean “willing to cut price in half” or thirds or any other major amount. And if there’s a pretty big differential between what they’re asking and what you’re willing to spend, boy you’d better have a verbal agreement some sort. before spending a bunch of money to go see it.
Suffice it to say that it’s very difficult to handle horse sales as a general rule because everybody is so sure that the other side is out to screw them over in every way possible. I wish you could get rated or verified as a seller so that people would know that what you say is what you say, period!
I appreciate the reply. I don’t argue with sellers. I don’t belittle sellers. I just want the seller to be up front and engage in a conversation with me. I want to get to know you, the seller, as I generally think vetting the seller is more important than vetting the horse.
I have travelled cross country to look at a horse where I stayed in a drafty fishing cabin in the middle of nowhere in Oregon to look a yearling that couldn’t be caught.
I travelled 3 hrs on a Labor Day weekend during tropical rain storm to look at a horse that only cross cantered on the lunge line. I told the seller thank-you and left.
All I say is that when I call you to inquire about your horse…AT THAT POINT IN TIME…ON THAT DAY…the horse should have a price…and I would like to know what that price is. Do NOT answer a question with a question and ask me what my budget is.
The reason for the “everybody is so sure that the other side is out to screw them over in every way possible…” is because the reputation is well earned…just look at the Alice Trajan, Sjef Jensen etc…etc…etc. cases.
I have been present at a “name farm” that everyone here would know when my friend inquired about a horse. The sellers did not realize my friend could hear when a husband and wife were discussing what the horse was priced at and the price increased 50% when they found who the potential buyer was.
I can tell you of a recent case I personally know of where the parents, who were not horse people, but had money, bought a drugged horse for their daughter…for serious change. They only found out about it when the horse went nuts at home.
I feel confident in my abilities to start young horses, so that is what I buy. They are blank slates. I don’t want to buy someone else’s training or training mistakes.
But I totally appreciate that if people are buying “performance” then the price will increase with increasing credentials. If people ask a price, you can give a price and say, price will increase with increased training and show results.
I did try the horse and offered for the horse using some of the language mentioned here. It was very cordial the whole time because I liked the seller and she seemed to like me. We agreed we would work towards a mutually acceptable number, which we did. I think everyone is happy.
