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There are 3 homes for sale in our neighborhood. One of them is offering a gift card to a home improvement store and membership to a sports complex with swimming pool (our subdivision does not have a swimming pool).
Buyers: would that make you choose that house over the others?
Agents: have you seen this work?
We're one of the other 2 homes on the market and wonder if we should offer similar incentives.
No, not really. A "good" buyers' agent sees through it, gets the value amount, and lets the buyers know what the sellers are really asking. It's ALL about price of the home. Price it right and it will sell. Why would someone pay $20k extra for a house that offers a $1000 home improvement gift card?
If you're priced very well and very competetively, then it's just an extra bell and whistle to add, as I offer a trip to the Bahamas or Mexico (all inclusive beach from resort) with all my listings, but they're also priced to sell! We don't over price to offer incentives.
I passed up homes with "incentives" and bought one where the sellers were extremely stubborn about even kicking in money to replace the obsolete and not-up-to-code water heater. Why? Because this house was still good value for money and I liked it best out of all the properties I saw. I passed over properties with stainless steel appliances and new granite countertops (neither of which impress me, everybody is doing it now) to buy a house with its original 52 year-old kitchen and a mix of old and new appliances, and no refrigerator.
I bet some of the sellers were thinking to themselves "But but...we have GRANITE! We have CROWN MOLDINGS! We have STAINLESS STEEL APPLIANCES! We are offering $1,000 for a decorating allowance!" So what? I do not care for granite/stainless steel, I can buy my own paint, and I can put in my own crown moldings. And the crown moldings I put in will be high-quality and correctly installed, not the cheapo crap I saw in some houses.
Incentives did not work for me. The right house did, and my agent and I bargained very hard to get it.
Thanks for all the replies. That's how we feel, no incentive is going to make me choose one house over another. At least not the incentives that my neighbor is offering. If I like the house then the incentives are just the icing on the cake.
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