Incentives to help sell

I simply am not a big fan of many 'incentives' I see that some sellers are offering.

I found this article online at the East Valley Tribune in Phoenix.

The Bohalls have sweetened the deal by offering a free trip to Hawaii, a free big-screen TV and $10,000 cash to whoever steps forward and buys their house.

“We’re in a bit of a time crunch, and that’s why I thought instead of just giving an incentive like everybody does, like we’ll pay $3,000 worth of your closing costs, I said no, let’s make the incentive big,” Craig Bohall said.

To me this is asking the buyer to right now go ahead and not only purchase the home, but also make plans for a trip to Hawaii to spend even more money AND buy a big screen TV the buyer may or may not need. The trip to Hawaii is not free and neither is the TV. Yeah maybe the seller is picking out the vacation package and the brand name of the TV, but make no mistake the buyer is paying for them.

These so called incentives require the buyer to pay more money for a home purchase in my opinion. Take the Hawaii trip for example. Sure if I'm the buyer I'm probably paying for the most likely a 'discount' travel package (not a pleasure trip to Maui). Once in Hawaii I have to pay for food, rental car, and entertainment. That includes golf and shopping. If the vacation package is a couple of thousand dollars, I might spend a couple of thousand dollars in expenses. So now I've bought the home for an extra couple grand (for the vacation package) and a couple of grand more that maybe I wasn't planning to spend.

I've been shopping for a new TV for at least 3 years. I'm very particular about the kind of TV that I'm going to settle on. The technology has changed in that 3 years and the prices have varied. Am I supposed to believe that the big screen TV included with the home is the ONE TV that I actually want?? Probably not. Please, these incentives are a joke.

Oh and exactly where does the $10,000 cash come from?? Proceeds from the amount of money the buyer agrees to pay for the home.

Right now I believe if you want to offer an incentive, simply lower the damn asking price to meet the market. There is no need to be creative beyond what really comes down to dollars and $ense.