Negotiating real estate

Maysam Ali speaks with Harvard professor about this field.

The Dubai Real Estate Institute (DREI) partnered with the S.A.B. Negotiation Group to present a three-day High Impact Real Estate Negotiations programme on developing the right skills for negotiating real estate deals. The course, taught by Harvard Professor and S.A.B. Negotiation senior consultant Haroon Kalimullah, aims to coach professionals, managers, entrepreneurs and students on the crucial skills they must master in order to excel in the world of real estate and business.

"In this course, we are trying to give a template of how we negotiate," Kalimullah, from Harvard University's Kennedy School of Government, said. "We give the skills and tools needed to evaluate negotiations with regards to the real estate market." Kalimullah is completing his degree in political science and public policy at the University of Michigan. He is an expert on negotiation skills and is equally adept in management, leadership and conflict resolution. He stressed the importance of conflict resolution, saying that people in this field need to learn the institutional ways of negotiations and the politics of organisations.

What is the programme about?

The programme covered the fundamentals of negotiations, personality profiling and arguing a case, power and persuasion, and negotiations in groups and cross culture. To engage the participants in these topics, Kalimullah used interactive techniques. They included role-plays, case studies, live negotiations, small group discussion and exercise. This ensures that the participants use the skills that they learned.

"We had four case studies in which real negotiation took place," said Kalimullah. The participants used their skills in the cases in order to understand the situations. They had to examine what works well in negotiating, and this involved a thinking process and analysis."

Novel idea

The programme differs from traditional subjects in university curricula. For one, the idea of a real estate major is still very new. Students aiming to study real estate basically learn advertising and marketing, economics and business mathematics, in addition to real estate law.

The value of those is diminished if the courses are not accompanied by rigorous training in negotiation and persuasion skills. Universities that provide this kind of training are mainly based in the US.

Kalimullah acknowledged the divergence of this field from established fields. "This field is different from the traditional fields. It is more similar to business and strategic management."

According to Kalimullah, negotiation is the most important factor in this field. He said that research related to this topic is growing considerably as people attach more value to the importance of this skill and its capacity to be learned.

What does it take to excel in real estate bargaining?

"Motivation, energy, interaction and social skills, persuasion and ability to develop trust" are some of the qualities that people involved in deal-making should have, Professor Kalimullah said.

Stability of career

Real estate markets have their phases of boom and languish. For those seeking a career in real estate, this is intimidating because it deprives their long-term plans of the stability factor. For those living in Dubai, this is not an imminent problem.

Kalimullah said: "The real estate in Dubai is constantly growing." He projected continuous growth for at least the next 10 to 15 years. He added, "Students and professionals here have an understanding of the local culture so they are at an advantage . . . Those who spend a lot of time in the area tend to do well in this field."