If you are looking to buy a house right now, you really could not have picked a better time. The market is slowly starting to cool off from its hot-streak of the past five years, and many sellers are finding it is quite difficult to get their home off their hands.
In order to make their home stand out from the many others that are also for sale, an increasing number of sellers are offering special incentives, discounts and promotions to lure in buyers.
These incentives range from the very extravagant to the economical and easy. Homeowners have been known to offer a car with the purchase of a home, or help with closing costs; just about anything to get them to sign the final papers.
This is all great news for buyers as they not only have a glut of homes to choose from, but they will probably get some kind of extra perk just for buying.
A September 16, 2006 article by Annemarie Donkin of the-signal.com, “Home sellers turn creative,” discusses the great lengths many homeowners are going to as the market starts to slow.
“Selling your house is no longer a piece of cake. The word on the street is don't sell unless you absolutely have to. In stark contrast to the bidding wars and buying frenzy that drove house prices up last August, home sellers now can wait months for an offer and it is usually below their already reduced asking price. After five years of rabid real estate speculation that pushed the average person out of the housing market, savvy homebuyers are now playing a waiting game while scanning the multiples to find the best house for the lowest price.”
While buyers are sitting on the sidelines of the market, waiting for prices to fall, sellers are becoming more and more creative on how they attract buyers to just come in and look around, not even necessarily buy.
Cindy Schwanke, a baker from Castaic, Calif., offers specially-made cupcakes to potential home buyers since she quite her job as a baker to focus on selling her three-bedroom home. Another man in Canyon County, Calif., offered to include his Lincoln Town Car with the sale of his home as an extraordinary incentive for potential buyers.
The time a home stays on the market is longer than ever and there are more homes for sale then we have seen in over a decade. This is affecting just about every person who is looking to sell their home, regardless of the size and beauty of it.
Many potential home buyers are becoming very educated about the state of our market right now, and are going to know if a home is overpriced. This goes to show that the incentives and promotions are not going to be what drives in the buyers, but the actual listing price.
“‘The buyers are definitely out there,’ said Miguel Soler, a real estate agent with RE/Max in Valencia. ‘It's not a bad market, just overpriced homes,’ he said. ‘The bottom line is, selling houses is very competitive on price. People don't care about cookies, donuts or flowers, they just want the best value and they are doing comparison shopping.’ He said many sellers are unrealistic about the true value of their home. ‘You either need to spend a lot of money and price it accordingly or price it competitively. Buyers are now coming to us already educated about what is on the market, know what they want and know what they want to spend,’ Soler said. ‘They are looking at six to 10 homes at a minimum to find the best house at that price.’”
So as sellers start top get more and more creative out of pure desperation, we will have to see what really works to lure-in those buyers.
Could it be as easy as a batch of designer cupcakes? Probably not. Most people want to see these perks in the form of cold-hard cash and discounts.
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