What Do Buyer's Want?

From Real Trends Email Update #858, dated November 29, 2007:

===What is today's consumer's #1 incentive in buying a home?===
When consumers were asked recently what incentive appeals to them most in buying a home, three out of four chose “closing costs paid.” “Not surprising, this would represent a bottom-line savings of several thousand dollars in normal closing cost fees and services,” noted Michael Bearden, president and CEO of HouseHunt, Inc., a consumer-oriented Internet firm which conducted the national e-mail random survey. “In contrast, only two percent of respondents chose a paid trip or vacation as their top incentives.”
Placing a distant second in the homebuyer incentive survey was “free upgrades,” with nine percent of the vote. In third place at six percent was “free property inspection.” Then came “free appliances” and “flooring credits,’ at three and two percent respectively. The incentive scoring last at one percent was “landscaping credits.”Added Bearden: “Our latest national Current Market Conditions survey showed the seller-buyer ratio at 52%-36% ratio, with 12 percent reporting 50-50.
The survey also showed that it is taking longer to sell a home – 74 percent said more than 60 days -- with only 51 percent of sellers getting more than 95 percent of their asking prices. Only 11 percent reported price appreciation of 10 percent or more in the past year. Multiple offers have almost disappeared. We anticipate that results from our fourth quarter market conditions survey in late December will be similar.”