Two More Examples When Asking for a Discount Works

As most of you know, I'm a fan of asking for a discount (especially in certain cases when it's easy to do so). So I thought it appropriate to highlight two more examples of how asking for a discount can pay off.

The first example comes from a recent comment on my post titled Six Times It's Easy to Ask for a Discount where the reader said:

Works with my dentist. He would rather be paid cash then have to go thru billing. So he will take payments and charge me what he would charge an insurance company. They get less from insurance companies so why should I have to pay more? Sometimes he will take payments as long as they are doing the work, but want to be paid in full when they are done. So I spread the work out as long as I can as long as it's done and without any harm to me. He will do a cleaning for 150 and I can pay that off in 2 or 3 payments. LIKE THEY SAY, ASK, YOU WILL BE SURPRISED.

The second example is from a recent Smart Money article that says real estate broker commissions are negotiable. Their thoughts:

Brokers like to make it sound as if their fees are engraved in stone, but that’s rarely the case. During the housing bubble, for example, as the number of brokers sharply increased, so did the competition for listings—one broker says he lowered his fee by a full percentage point just to give himself an edge. But even in the wake of the recent crash, you have a good chance of negotiating a better deal—that same surplus of brokers is still out there competing for even fewer listings, giving you something of a leg up.

The broker we spoke with, who asked not to be named, says that sellers should always shop around for better terms and has some suggestions for the best conditions to induce brokers to lower their fees: “If somebody’s willing to commit to me for selling one place and buying another,” or “If you’re in a particularly desirable neighborhood with a house that will bring a lot of traffic” for an open house. And with a lot of smaller brokers, he says, “all you need to do is ask and they’ll lower the commission.”

This was true for us. We were able to get our agent to agree to a 1% fee if we bought our house through her. Doesn't hurt to ask, huh?

Do you have any success stories of asking for a discount? If so, please share them with us all in the comments below.

Comments

[Travis]

I constantly call the cable company to lower my bill. Recently I had it lowered by $30/month for 12 months. They are more than willing to lower the bill the only issue is that I have to call every 6-12 months depending on the special rate they give me.

[Travis]

As a addition to my above post I keep the cable because right now it costs me $10 a month to keep it since I have high speed internet (needed for my web design business).

[Jon]

We negotiated a significant cash discount with the neurosurgeon who repaired my wife's brain aneurysm. Similarly to the dentist, doctors are happy to get accounts receivable paid off so as to avoid billing, collections, etc.