What Sellers are Doing to Sell Houses in a Bad Market

I'm seeing article after article on buying and selling houses now that I'm house shopping (and I'm saving many of them to be sure I follow the tips.) In the May 21 issue of BusinessWeek magazine, they gave several interesting facts dealing with sellers offering incentives to get their houses sold. Here are a few of the comments from the piece that stood out to me:

• The latest trend is cash enticements to the tune of tens of thousands of dollars.

• The incentives, which don't figure into the national home-price data reported by industry groups, may be masking a steeper downturn.

• Buyers often find a subsidy more appealing than a lower price, since it means they don't have to put up as much cash.

• Sellers offer to pay a year's worth of association fees, annual property taxes, or closing costs.

They also don't say it outright, but they imply that some people are selling the houses with the furniture included.

We're looking at this from two sides -- what will we get when we buy and what will we need to offer when we sell. The buying side is still TBD, but as far as selling goes, we'll be starting with a reasonable price on the house (something many people have yet to come to grips with -- they think their houses are worth way more than market price) and then cover the basics -- a little painting, some flowers in the front, clean the house from top to bottom, and so on. If that doesn't work, we'll see. ;-)

Anyone out there seeing anything really extreme? (Like buy a house and get a car as part of the deal.) I'm sure there are some very interesting stories out there.

Comments

[Tyler]

When I bought my house, the previous owner said I could keep his $400 gas grill, $350 lawn mower, and the $3000 fridge and oven/stove. Saved me a bunch of first time home owner costs. He also left a bunch of nice paint, curtains, stuff like that. It was a win win because I needed them and he needed to sell. I love it!

I really don't want anyone's old furniture but leaving the appliances is usually a decent way to entice a buyer.

[Lord]

Someone in Beverly Hills was throwing in a years lease on a Maserati.

[Dy]

I've seen things like new appliances for free to free trips to Florida around my area in Illinois.

[Chris]

When I bought my home 2 years ago, there were some perks included also. We agreed to the sellers price and though the only appliances included were the dishwasher and the stove & microwave, they did agree to pay all of our closing costs and installed some nice blinds all around the house even after we'd agreed to all the terms.