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TR U M P STR A TEGI ES FO R R E A L ESTA TE

gratifying to the seller orthebuyer,andpersonalsatisfactionisanes-
sential element in the consummation of any deal. The harder the nego-
tiation and the more time spent, the greater the satisfaction both sides
willhaveover ahard fought victory.

PRINCIPLE 5: THE INVESTED TIME PRINCIPLE

This is related to principle 4, “Avoid a quick deal.” The “invested
time principle” says that the more time a person has invested in a
transaction, the less likelihood he or she’s going to give it up. In a
negotiation, you can use this to your advantage by getting the other
party to spend time on the deal, with reasonable requests for infor-
mation, a slow, drawn-out negotiation (when appropriate), and so on.
Because people hate the idea of having wasted time on something
that doesn’t work out, after they have spent enough time on some-
thing, they’ll do everything they can to salvage the transaction. It’s
very hard for someone to say, “forget the whole thing” and walk away,
after putting in a great amount of time and effort.

How Trump Uses It

In the 40 Wall Street deal, Trump had to negotiate an existing
ground lease that was a terrible document from his standpoint, but a
great document from the owner’s point of view. Trump and his at-
torneys had to negotiate every point, every clause, and every part of it
in order to come up with a document that both parties would be willing
to sign. That was and had to be a very tedious and time-consuming
transaction.
Trump could have said, “I can live with all these unfavorable
clauses because they’re not critical to making the building a success.”
But he knew the desirability of building up the invested time of both

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