Every Canadian anticipating the CUSMA negotiations understands that the stakes are high. This isn’t something you walk into and “see what happens.” The negotiations promise to be complex, competitive, chaotic and tactical.
But Prime Minister Mark Carney hasn’t been waiting for negotiations to begin. He’s been planning, preparing and strategizing. He’s travelled the globe strengthening international relationships, exploring trade alignment and accelerating decisions around infrastructure and resource development. On the surface it looks like diplomacy, but it’s more than that. It’s negotiation planning.
He is shaping options, influencing perception, reducing dependency and preparing for pressure. Carney is building and signalling Canada’s BATNA.
What is BATNA — and why it matters
Best Alternative to a Negotiated Agreement is a foundational negotiation concept. In plain terms, it’s your fall-back plan, your alternatives. When you have strong alternatives, you have leverage. If Canada arrived at the table with the same dependency on the U.S. that we had 12 months ago, the odds of securing a fair deal would be dramatically lower.
Carney has also built a negotiation structure around him — not just a chief negotiator, but a broader advisory group representing business, labour and political experience from all parties. Different perspectives, different pressures, different priorities, all informing the strategy before a single word is spoken at the table. That level of disciplined preparation is not unique to international diplomacy. It’s the standard in every high-stakes negotiation.
Now bring this closer to home
In real estate, most negotiations are treated as though they begin when the offer is presented. That’s when focus sharpens. That’s when your client looks to you for guidance. That’s when the pressure arrives. But by that point, a surprising amount has already been set in motion — or left unaddressed.
Consider a very real scenario. Your seller receives an offer that looks strong on price; it might even exceed expectations. But the conditions are weak. The financing is uncertain, the inspection clause is broad, the timelines favour the buyer and there is no deposit accompanying the offer. Your client turns to you and asks: “What do you think we should do?”
The instinctive answer focuses on price. The disciplined answer requires something you should have already done: a thorough assessment of BATNA on both sides.
What are the seller’s real alternatives if this deal falls apart? Is there still an active buyer pool for this property? Does your client have the financial and emotional runway to say no and wait? Now flip it. What are the buyer’s alternatives? Are they particularly attached to this property, or do they have genuine interest in other listings? What is their financial situation? Are they emotionally invested?
This information isn’t always easy to surface, and the agent who builds professional trust and communicates with subtlety is far more likely to get what they need. That intelligence shapes everything.
If the buyer is solid and values something specific about the property, a deal can likely be structured that reduces the seller’s risk while still giving the buyer the opportunity to do their due diligence. The goal isn’t to win the negotiation — it’s to design an outcome that both sides can accept.
The perception of BATNA matters just as much as the reality
Here’s the nuance that separates good negotiators from great ones: it’s not just BATNA that matters. It’s the perception of BATNA. People make decisions based on what they believe their options are, not always what those options actually are. Your ability to communicate with clarity, build trust and create a collaborative environment is what allows both sides to feel confident in the outcome.
This is the part many agents believe they already understand. And conceptually, most do. But in practice, it’s consistently underdeveloped. We prepare the listing, price the property, market it and manage the showings. But we don’t always invest enough time strengthening our client’s position before the negotiation begins. We don’t always think carefully about BATNA on both sides. We don’t always consider how our side’s alternatives can be improved, or at minimum, how they will be perceived across the table.
Carney isn’t waiting to see how the U.S. negotiates. He’s shaping the environment they will negotiate in — reducing dependency, expanding options, demonstrating resource strength and making those alternatives visible. That doesn’t guarantee a better outcome. But it changes the tone before anyone sits down.
He said it directly: “It’s not the case that the United States dictates the terms. We have a negotiation.”
Your seller can project that same confidence
But only if the groundwork has been laid. When their alternatives are real and clearly established, your advice changes. You can recommend holding firm on weak conditions even when the price is attractive. You can push for stronger terms without fear of losing the deal. You can slow the pace rather than being pulled into the buyer’s timeline. And your client will feel that difference — not pressure, but informed confidence.
The agents who navigate these moments well aren’t more aggressive. They’re more prepared. They’ve thought through the deal from both sides before the pressure arrives.
At a national level, this kind of preparation is obvious. No one expects a country to improvise its way through a negotiation of this importance. In real estate, where the stakes are deeply personal and often financially significant, we should hold ourselves to the same standard.
The advice you give in the moment is only as strong as the position you built before you got there.
Suze Cumming is the founder of The Nature of Real Estate and one of Canada’s leading educators in real estate negotiation. For more than a two decades, she has helped over 7,000 real estate professionals strengthen their negotiation skills through the Accredited Real Estate Negotiator (AREN) and Professional Real Estate Negotiator (PREN) programs, as well as coaching many of Canada’s top agents and teams.
Her work focuses on helping REALTORS® develop Negotiation Intelligence: the practical skills of preparation, communication, critical thinking, trust-building and strategic decision-making that lead to better outcomes for clients. As artificial intelligence reshapes the profession, Suze’s current work explores how AI can enhance professional judgment without replacing the human skills at the heart of successful negotiation. You can learn more about her learning ecosystem here.
A passionate sailor and international yacht racer, Suze believes that excellence, whether on the water or at the negotiating table, comes from continual learning, thoughtful preparation and the ability to adapt as conditions change.
The Man is a Fool.
If you take his negotiating tactics and apply to your business, you will miss Offer due date while you are busy forming a negotiation team while communicating with the listing agent how great your Letter of Intent will be.
If you take his moral guidance, you are finding yourself in front of Professional Standards for conflicts of interest.
If you take his budgeting advice, you are bankrupt and out of the business is two years.
There are no positive take aways from this man as it relates to running a successful real estate business.
Mike, I appreciate the comment—and I agree with part of what you’re saying.
Real estate doesn’t give us the luxury of time. Offers have deadlines, emotions are high, and things move quickly. If we slow down in the moment, we can absolutely lose the deal.
That’s not what I’m suggesting.
The article is really about what happens before that moment.
Using a current, high-profile negotiation just helps illustrate something we don’t always make explicit in our own work—how much of the outcome is shaped by preparation, positioning, and understanding alternatives ahead of time.
A simple example from our world:
A seller receives a strong price with weak conditions.
If they haven’t thought through their alternatives in advance, that moment can feel pressured and reactive.
If they have, the advice we give is clearer, calmer, and often leads to a better result.
No negotiation team required. No delay. Just better thinking earlier.
That’s the takeaway.
What I have learnt: Never insult the person you are negotiating with. Second lesson: Have a plan and be practical. Get your team involved and consider their ideas. (In this case it is team Canada, not just your cronies) Third lesson: Be fair. Consider what the other person is aiming for and make it a win win for both.
Monny, this is thoughtful—and I agree with all three points.
Respect matters more than people think in negotiation. Once that’s lost, the conversation narrows very quickly.
Having a plan—and pressure-testing it with others—is also where a lot of the real work sits. We don’t always call it that in real estate, but the best outcomes usually come from thinking things through before we’re in the middle of it.
And your last point is an important one. Understanding what the other side is trying to achieve doesn’t weaken your position—it strengthens your ability to find solutions that actually hold together.
If there’s one layer I’d add, it’s what sits underneath all three:
how clear we are on our own position and alternatives before the negotiation begins.
That’s where the advice we give gets stronger—and where things tend to feel a lot less reactive.
Sure. But there has not been any indication that Carney has any success from a negotiation perspective. I mean he has assembled and re-assembled his US trade negotiation team two or three times. Most government leaders wouldn’t do that if the previous team and the negotiations were successful.
And I can not really point to a single Carney negotiation win. Whatever Carney is doing to “prepare” prior to a negotiation have not been successful to this point. Even now, Mexico and US are actively closing in a CUSMA deal – for several months. Canada is not even at the table yet – apparently formulating a team. Canada is late to the negotiation. Carney’s lack of preparedness will affect every Canadian.
There are a lot of other Canadians that could have been researched – like Kevin O’Leary – a billionaire that has made a career based on successful negotiations.
Carney is just not the one.
Mike
Suze,Thank you taking time in writing this article. You can always learn a thing or two from any conversation or article no matter the subject that you can apply to your own life. Sadly there are too few critical thinkers in this world so articles like this just fly over their heads and for some reason they just have to take things in to political theatre and miss out on some very inciteful information.
Wioletta, thank you. I appreciate this.
My intention with the article wasn’t to make a political statement so much as to use a very visible, high-stakes negotiation to explore principles that apply directly to our work as advisors.
Real estate negotiations may happen on a much smaller scale, but preparation, understanding alternatives, managing perception, and thinking strategically before the pressure hits are all very real parts of what we do.
And you’re right—there’s often value in looking beyond the obvious subject matter and asking what lessons might transfer into our own world.
That curiosity is where a lot of growth happens.