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Negotiation & Bidding FAQ

Is it normal for a buyer to keep lowering their bid after I've already accepted their initial offer?

Short answer: No, this is not normal or acceptable practice — once you've accepted a specific offer, that's generally understood as agreeing to a deal at that price, and a buyer repeatedly lowering it afterward, sometimes called "chiselling" or renegotiating post-acceptance, is a bad-faith pattern that's reasonable to push back on firmly or simply walk away from.

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Why accepting an offer should mean something

Once you’ve said yes to a specific offer, both parties should reasonably be operating under the understanding that a deal has been struck at that price — repeatedly revising the number downward afterward undermines the entire basis of having negotiated and agreed in the first place.

Common ways this tactic gets justified

A buyer doing this might cite a newly discovered “quality issue,” a sudden “market change,” or some other explanation for lowering an already-accepted price — some genuine reasons for adjustment do exist, like an inspection revealing your material genuinely differs from what was described, but a pattern of repeated, vague downward revisions is different from a single, well-explained adjustment.

How to respond

It’s entirely reasonable to firmly hold the buyer to the originally accepted price, ask for a specific, verifiable justification for any change, and be willing to walk away from a buyer who repeatedly does this — a legitimate buyer negotiating in good faith generally doesn’t need to revisit an already-accepted deal more than once, if at all.

How ScrapTrade Makes This Easier

Offers accepted through ScrapTrade are recorded as part of the transaction, giving you something concrete to point back to if a buyer tries to renegotiate after you’ve already agreed.

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