BEND, Ore. (CNN/Money) - Haggling over flea market trinkets is one thing. Negotiating the price of a home is quite another.

Just the bargaining process is enough to make many buyers feel ill at ease. Never mind that you're wheeling and dealing over thousands, sometimes tens of thousands of dollars.

"We've gotten used to fixed prices, so we're not only out of practice when it comes to negotiating, we're even uncomfortable," said Robert Irwin, author of "Tips and Traps when Negotiating Real Estate."

To make matters more difficult, the rules for negotiating have changed. "The old game was the seller listed up here," said Chip Boring, a real estate agent in Sebring, Fla. "The buyer knew that and made an offer down there, and then they met in the middle."

With demand for housing as strong as it is in many places, there's no such prefab formula these days. Your offer, and the ensuing negotiation, will be a balancing act of what you can afford, what the market requires and what the seller really wants out of the deal.

Sometimes it's not just about the money.

Before you find the house of your dreams, do yourself a favor and get pre-approved for a mortgage.

Not to be confused with pre-qualification -- an estimate based only on what you tell the lender -- pre-approval verifies your credit history, income and other financial information lenders need to approve a mortgage. In fact, the only thing missing is information on the house itself.

With a solid figure in hand, you can be sure you don't waste time looking at houses outside of your budget.

When you finally do make an offer, the seller will take you more seriously because you already have a lender on board. Pre-approval is particularly important in markets where sellers are getting multiple offers.

As you can see from housing data for cities across the country, the degree to which a market is hot or lukewarm varies greatly.

Studying real estate listings and going to open houses will give you an idea of what you can get in your price range. Real estate agents should also be able to give you a sense of the market.

"One question you should ask the agent is 'What is the standard deviation between list prices and actual sale price?'" said Ron Phipps, a real estate agent in Warwick, R.I.

In other words, what percentage of their asking price do sellers in that area typically receive?

"If you offer 95 percent [of the asking price] it can be an insult in some markets. In other place you're paying too much if you offer 95 percent," said Dan Lee, a real estate agent in Madison, Wis. "As a buyer, you need to be in tune with local conditions."

Within a metro market, you'll need to get an idea of how real estate is doing in individual neighborhoods. A house on one side of town might easily sell for tens of thousands more than its carbon copy on another side of town. (See "How to spot a winner.")

You know what you can afford. Your research has given you an idea of what a house should cost. If you want to understand how much wiggle room there is on the price, you need to understand the seller's motivation.

"A good buyer will ask as much information as they can about the seller," said Phipps, adding that right now many sellers are looking to relocate before school starts. "Ask why the seller is selling and what their timeline is."

If the sellers are facing foreclosure or scrambling to close on another house, it's safe to assume they are very motivated. Of course, if a house is already very well priced, making a low-ball offer may actually work against you.

"You need to make an offer that is conservative but not obnoxious," said Phipps. "Even if you raise your offer, you're not going to get the same hearing as you would if you'd just made a fair offer from the start."

Is their any wiggle room on new home prices? It depends. If the house hasn't been built yet, there may be no opportunity to get a deal. If, however, the finished house has been sitting on the market for some time, you have a shot at bargaining for a better price.

Keep in mind, though, that price is just one of many factors up for negotiation. According to Lee, the other components to an offer are the closing date; inclusions, such as appliances, fixtures and furniture; the amount of earnest money; and contingencies in the offer.

Related articles and tools • How much can you afford? • Mad dash to buy • What's in store for housing? • How to spot a winner

"The cleaner the offer, the better you can do on price," added Irwin. "Sellers don't like a lot of contingencies."

There's a final factor buyers overlook and sellers may not even realize: rapport.

"It's often the case that when a seller gets multiple offers they'll accept an offer not because it's the highest price, but because they want to see their house go to someone who really likes it," said Irwin.

In fact, this is so common that Phipps sometimes has buyers write a personal letter to the sellers explaining who they are and why they want to buy their house.

"You need to personalize the process," he said. "The difference of a thousand dollars is nothing on a half-million dollar house. But for some sellers it makes a world of a difference that their house is going to a good home."