Your scenario of having one group sitting one place, and another group sitting somewhere else, sounds like something choreographed for a Broadway play. While you may think that taking full control of the situaion makes things easier for everyone involved, it may become a hazard to the whole deal. From my experience, the buyers really don't want to get into face-to-face "adversarial" situation with the sellers. It has also been better for me to speak freely with the other agent, most likely on the telephone. Besides, as I said before, your idea would be impossible to do if the Buyer's are in, let's say, Colorado, and the deal is taking place in New Jersey, or, as someone in our office is doing right now, working a deal with someone in Italy. I believe you have to take each customer, whether buyer or seller, individually, and see what would be the most comfortable for them. Forcing them to sit in a strange room while a negotiation takes place down the hall maybe counterproductive. I recently had a seller turn down the first offer from a buyer out of hand on the telephone, saying it was too low. Turned it down cold. I waited about fifteen minutes until he cooled off, and called him back. I told him that the offer, under his circumstances (needed to sell) was a fair offer, but if he didn't think so, he should make a counter-offer. Having cooled off for that 15 minutes, he reconsidered, and we sold the property for just a little under asking price. If he had been in the same building as the buyer, he would have walked out (as would the buyer) and that deal would have died. Each transaction is different.

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