Real estate agents try to lure buyers with gifts, discounts

Published 10:28 pm Friday, June 25, 2010

EVERETT — Real estate agents are trying some new things these days to revive sagging interest in buying a home.

Whether it’s providing movie tickets at open houses, offering $5,000 off the sale price or even paying for a year of lawn mowing, agents are working hard to revive interest since the government tax credits for homebuyers went away.

“We gotta get buyers in the door,” said Connie Redden, a Windermere agent in Marysville.

Open houses aren’t new, but Redden and others have been adding some new twists to encourage visitors to the homes they’re selling. For example, she recently grouped a number of open houses in an area on the same day and passed out 500 fliers in the neighborhood.

“People may be renting and might want to live in the area,” she said.

Barb Lamoureux of Lamoureux Real Estate in Everett is doing something similar this weekend, but with a twist. She said agents representing 12 sellers at homes mostly in north Everett will hold open houses Sunday and have agreed to give buyers $5,000 if they take action by the end of the month. The money can be used toward the purchase.

“We’re trying to get people off the dime,” Lamoureux said.

Home sales have dropped nationally since the $8,000 tax credit for first-time buyers and a $5,000 credit for other buyers ended in April. Lamoureux said the news of the sales drop just makes people want to wait, but that interest rates are about as low now as they’ll ever be.

On Thursday, the average rate for a 30-year fixed loan was 4.69 percent. The last time they were cheaper was in the 1950s.

Lamoureux said the $5,000 offering is “our own stimulus program” to encourage people to act now. Six agents will each show two homes on Sunday, one from noon to 2 p.m. and the other from 2:30 to 4 p.m.

The addresses can be found at Lamoureuxhomes.com and will also be advertised in The Herald.

Redden said open houses can spur interest, but she’s spending a lot of time on producing good photos of her listings. She said many people like open houses, but they’re deciding which homes to go visit by looking at them first on the Internet.

“Good quality professional photos of the homes really help,” she said. “You need to get the good photos out there immediately.”

Redden isn’t doing just one thing. She’s setting up open houses, getting the photos up online, sending out fliers and buying print ads to boot. At some open houses, she includes fliers about other homes in the area for sale.

This weekend, she plans on offering free tickets to Regal cinema.

“You gotta be open to trying different things,” she said, adding, “You need all ranges of media to reach the public.”

The same thing goes for making the deal, she said, noting she’s even heard of one seller offering buyers a year of lawn mowings for a purchase.

Michael Sorenson of Windermere Everett South said that how the financial moves are made can also be important.

He noted that builders with only two or three lots can eliminate some fees and carrying costs for home buyers by signing a purchasing agreement and not transferring the title to the lot before building the home.

Or people considering selling a home in which they owe more than it’s worth might consider moving some of the debt to another property to make the first one easier to sell.