<prompt> Human: Researchers have found that people who list their homes or make offer on homes using precise numbers tend to get closer to what they want:They looked at five years of real estate sales in Alachua County, Florida, comparing list prices and actual sale prices of homes. They found that sellers who listed their homes more precisely say 494,500 as opposed to 500,000 consistently got closer to their asking price. Put another way, buyers were less likely to negotiate the price down as far when they encountered a precise asking price. Furthermore, houses listed in round numbers lost more value if they sat on the market for a couple of months.The issue here is one of basic psychology. When you give a precise number, the other party is more likely to assume youve put extra consideration into how youve arrived at that number.Theres no reason to think this doesnt apply beyond house hunting, such as with salary. Imagine you make 14 an hour and you believe you deserve 17. Step one is to shoot higher than you want while not being unreasonable. That means you might want to start negotiations at 20, but that number aside from being a big jump sounds like youre just trying to reach a certain level; it doesnt automatically sound like the number is directly tied to what you necessarily think youre worth. Maybe it is directly tied, but that doesnt make any difference to whether or not it sounds like it is. Instead, ask for 20.25 or 19.75. Personally, Id go for 19.75 because it doesnt represent the mental block that comes with 20, so I think itd be given more consideration. Now it sounds like you know your exact worth. Of course, youll also need to justify your request by citing your accomplishments, industry standards, your position, etc, but now youve set the tone.Across a series of studies, we found that precise first offers act as more potent anchors than round first offers. For both buyers and sellers, in both controlled vignettes and unscripted dyadic exchanges, precise opening-offer recipients made more modest adjustments in their counteroffers, yielding more value to precise offer-makers. Study 2 revealed that this effect carried through to final settlements, with final deals being more heavily anchored by precise opening offers than round ones. These effects were due at least in part to attributions that offer recipients made: compared to round first offers, precise first offers were seen as more informed and reasoned, leading responders to make more conciliatory counteroffers.  <response>: Psychologist checking in...This is good advice, and stems from whats called anchoring bias. There is a long and uncommonly widely read literature base regarding these types of biases notably including the Nobel Prize in economics for Daniel Kahneman. The basic idea has wide experimental support far beyond not just housing negotiations, but beyond negotiations generally. But put simply: if you talk in cents, people wont think in dollars. 