A Peacock?

It’s amazing what builders are offering buyers if they just buy that house. Everything from plane tickets and new cars to a pet peacock! These are obviously desperate times with home prices nationwide expected to tumble nearly 6 percent this year and inventories of unsold houses at near record levels. While individual homeowners can wait until prices revive to sell, builders have to continue paying interest charges on unsold houses.

So as a buyer this is clearly a time to bargain. But what kind of bargain are you looking for? What you should press for first is a lower purchase price. Think about it for a minute. If you get the price lowered by the same amount as that new Mercedes then you’d pay less interest over the life of the loan plus less property taxes.

And a developer wants the recorded price of that home to be as high as possible so he can sell the surrounding places for the higher price too. So he wants the higher price and you don’t. Sometimes you may have to use his mortgage broker in order for him to give you that special deal. And with a little research you may find that his mortgage broker isn’t the best deal around.

Just remember you have plenty of houses out there to choose from nowadays so don’t get swayed by showy promises of gifts.