Our first 2 considerations when buying a house will always be location and condition of house (as indicated by a very good home inspector). If either of those didn't meet our requirements, there isn't an LCD TV that would get us off the fence. But if location and house were good, I'd sooner buy at the lowest possible cost, forget the tv. Lowering price and paying closing costs would be the things I'd love the seller to do.

TV would be a waste with us.

I am a buyer and I agree with kec01. I think my two most important criteria would be location and the house itself. If the price is right, then you shouldn't have any problem selling it.

If the house met my criteria and you're willing to pay closing cost, I would consider it.

Depending on long your house has been on the market and how eager you want to sell, consider paying closing cost and reduced price.

Good Luck~

I agree with the other posters -- location, price, condition of the house, floorplan of the house are all the important things to me. If those things are negative, then an incentive won't help. If you're willing to kick in closing costs or give a decorating allowance, those are a few of the things that may help some buyers to overcome any deficiencies in the home that they may percieve.

Cordovamom is on the right track. The biggest motivator is MONEY. Offer to pay some of the closing costs, or part or all of the first year's taxes, insurance, interest, etc. You can also buy down their rate for the first year or more. All these things will make your home seem more affordable. There are a lot of buyers that can (or think they can) afford the house payments. It's the upfront costs that they have trouble with.

Good luck,

Kevin

There have been several builders in my area who have offered cars and trucks with new homes. It didn't work and many of those homes are still on the market. I'd say that location, price and the condition of the home are the most important factors.

We just bought a house last month so the searching process is still fresh in my mind.

Here is what first got me interested in looking at a house: price, location, size of house, size of lot, style of house.

What we were looking for when we actually saw the house: quality of construction, layout and size of the rooms, placement in the neighborhood, peacefulness of the neighborhood, on a hill or level, were there shops within easy walking/biking distance, proximity to the light rail station, etc.

I had a one-page spreadsheet that laid out clearly what we wanted or needed to make the house work for us. I carried it around and made notes. Our realtor liked this as it helped us quickly decide whether a house was a possibility or not. A TV system was not one of the criteria. So I would vote no on this idea.

When we were selling our previous house, we did offer incentive to the buyer's *agent* - but that's another thread.

I sort of disagree with everyone who's posted so far. (Respectfully)
This has been addressed here recently, more than once if you do a search for 'home theatre system' and 'new car with house'

Incentives can be great but they have to be properly implemented. I think using cars is a bad idea for most situations and a lot of this depends on the buyer. A TV could be a great incentive if a prospective buyer is having a hard time deciding between your property and another equal property. It won't make up for major shortcomings or problems the property has though.

With most buyers, cash is severely depleted after they buy a house and going out of pocket for things they want or need is something they'd rather not do. In the past I suggested a nice new shiny riding lawn mower. The thing is TV's and lawn mowers are guy things. Not to sound like a cheauvenist, it's just that I'm a guy and don't know what would appeal to women. That would be a good question to ask the people on this forum.

First time buyers aren't looking all that closely at stuff. They just don't know better. They would be most likely to bite at the offer.

Some other suggestions might be for the buyer a choose of incentives. Other ideas might be a choice of nice garden sheds, childrens playsets, fencing, and maybe a vacation to somewhere. Nothing overly expensive. And instead also have to buyer close by a certain date to get the free gift.

If you're in a subdivision or something like that where you're pretty much up against fairly identical homes all built at the same time and in the same condition, offering perks is something to consider.

I honestly don't know how one would properly implement incentives into a brokered deal. This is more of a plan for FSBO's to take since you're the one doing the selling.

The idea is to have more people look at your home and make more buyers qualify to buy your home. A car or TV or riding lawnmower is not going to accomplish that.
There are 3 things that I would recommend doing.
1. Reduce the price
2. Offer to pay closing cost
3. Offer to buy down the interest rate for the buyer
Any of those 3 things should increase the buyer pool and hopefully make for a faster sale.

How would you buy down the interest rate for the buyer? I would love to do that! I asked about it and my real estate agent said it was not very easy to do for an individual - I see contractors offering that - but they have long term relationships with several mortgage companies and banks so it's easier for them to buy down points or interest rates.

The other things - price is lowered and in my part of the country - seller paying part or all of the closing costs is expected - so that's not anything special'round here. But the interest rate thing - that would be something nice I think.

Interesting that your agent has no lender contact that might assist you in marketing your home by offering a lower interst rate. Have your agent call a local reputable lender and see if they can advertise on your flyer like: 5.5% rates are back, contact Joe X from Wells Fargo Mortgage at 555-1212.
The lender should be able to tell you your cost of having to buy down the rate from ie. 6.25% to 5.5%
for a buyer.

I am not in favor of gimick incentives and don't think they necessarily attract the most qualified buyers.

My best advise is to make sure your homes is priced based upon the facts of relevent closed comps, and not the active competition. Right pricing overcomes all objections.

If this is your current position, then consider buying down the financing rate so that more buyers may qualify to buy your home.

Well, definitely didn't work for me.
While we were looking at a house, the out-of-state seller called up to give us the late-model car in the garage if we bought the house. Floor plan was wacky; house was dark (no windows in master bedroom, for example); priced above the "upgraded" home price for the area and definitely not upgraded (all homes we looked at basically fell into two categories: cosmetically "upgraded" for about $200K more than the "non-upgraded")
Then we looked in the garage and saw that it was a Jeep Cherokee. We are anti-SUV people, so that offer may have actually hurt the sellers.
Be careful.
R/
Lisa A.

You have to be creative in a slow market. Lowering the price is commonly suggested here instead of trying to get the most for it you possibly can.
You can learn an awful lot by looking at incentives the new home subdivision builders offer in you're in a part of the country there are such builders. For some it's just ugrades and financing deals but for others it's other things.
you still have to find a way to get prospective buyers obviously but then you have to get them to act and act quickly.

We had friends who had a house that just wouldn't sell. They were already below comps, appraisal, etc. They offered a "$10k cash back" and it sold.

sue36 wrote: We had friends who had a house that just wouldn't sell. They were already below comps, appraisal, etc. They offered a "$10k cash back" and it sold.

Respectfully, though you don't know if the 10K incentive was really *why the house sold when it did.
Perhaps it was just concidence that the right buyers came along immediately after the sellers added that to the listing?

Thinking back to when we were looking to buy a house and then selling, I would say that incentives do NOT work. As everyone else mentioned, location, price, floor layout were most important. Extras, well, they were extras. Offering a car would definitely NOT do anything for me as a buyer.

That said, if you do offer incentives, think like QQ (no, not like a guy but creatively). Offer things connected with a house such as upgrade on countertop, flooring, offer to paint the walls. If you have $20,000+ to spend on a car or even $5000-$10,000, use it on the house in either upgrades or stuff QQ mentioned or lower the price.