[tharkun__]

There's a different school of thought on negotiating tactics that says you definitely should be the first to offer a number, because it anchors the negotiations.

I can see both to be honest. Especially if you don't 'know what you're worth' in a given market, letting them make the first move at last has a chance that they won't offer you 50k for something hey are prepared to pay 250k for. Potentially they will start off with 150k and you're gonna be happy with it, because you undervalued yourself at 100k. Luckily you didn't say that but took the 150k offered!

If you know you're worth at least 150k, asking for 200k can anchor the negotiations in your direction as long as you don't overshoot what they were prepared to offer by too much (which might just kill the negotiations altogether). You might just walk away with 180k and you feel good because you got 30k more than you thought you might get and they feel good because they got you 'cheaper'.

I have no way of knowing which strategy actually works out better, as its hard to do a controlled experiment here :) Also you probably have incomplete market information and it might be hard to know how incomplete it is.