Real Estate Blog

Buy a house.  Get a New Car?

I’ve been on vacation for the last few weeks, but I’m still keeping up with inventory and home sales activity in the Wenatchee real estate market and surrounding area.   As always, when I travel, my laptop, cell phone and Fax machine come with me so I’m never out of touch for very long.

Our travels have taken us through Oregon, California, into Arizona and back to the Palm Springs area of California where we have been for the last two weeks.  Southern California real estate activity  has been a hot topic of conversation for quite some time, with a lot of nationwide discussion centering on whether there will be a burst in the proverbial bubble.   Where ever I go here, it seems the discussion turns to the real estate market, whether they know I’m involved in real estate or not.  People are still amazed at the recent escalation of values.   But, it appears the market has stabilized.  No serious price decline, but inventory of homes is substantially more than it was a year or two ago and it’s taking longer for homes to sell.  It’s no longer a strong sellers market. 

Along these lines, I was reading an article the other day about sellers starting to offer incentives to buyers.  These incentives included: cars, vacations, landscaping, kitchen remodels, etc.  There was a poll taken about which incentive buyers would prefer, and the free car won by a significant margin.  So, instead of reducing prices, some sellers are opting to offer a buying incentive.    I guess, all things being equal, I would buy a house with a new car over one that wasn’t offering the car!

It’s amazing to watch all the new construction going on and fathoming the ability for the market to remain stable.  It just seems like, with all the new inventory, prices should be falling.   Only time will tell what the long term effect will be. 

Carol@TopPropertiesWenatchee.com
http://TopPropertiesWenatchee.com

source: Palm Springs Real Estate

This entry was posted on Thursday, February 16th, 2006 at 5:53 pm and is filed under Buyer Needs, Carol's Travel news & Info, Miscellaneous news, info, ramblings. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.

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