In a Down Market, Home Buyer Gets Maserati

Nov. 12, 2006 — -- With the median price of a new home at an all-time low, and one million more houses on the market nationwide today than there were last year, homeowners are going to any length just to get properties off their hands.

Home owners and home builders are pulling out the stops with givebacks and giveaways -- everything from cupcakes to flat-screen TVs and cars.

Cindy Schwanke has been trying to sell her suburban Los Angeles home for nearly nine months.

"We never really thought we'd have a problem selling," Schwanke said. "None of our neighbors have had a problem selling. Our relatives have never had a problem selling their homes. So we didn't anticipate this at all."

To make matters worse, Cindy and her husband have already bought a new house. They are now paying two mortgages.

Last summer, Schwanke quit her job as a pastry chef to devote all her time to marketing her old house, where she waits armed with desserts ready to snare a prospective buyer.

"I try to bring people in," she said. "I bake cupcakes for them. I offer them water, and I do whatever I can to make it a pleasant experience for them."

But in many cases cupcakes alone won't cut it. On the West Coast home sales have plummeted over the last two years. Even worse, many buyers who've bought homes are now backing out of their contracts.

"People are so terrified of the economy," said Steve Johnson, director of Metrostudy Southern California. "They're seeing all this press. They're hearing it's a bad time."

In an effort to find buyers, homeowners also are cutting their prices coast to coast, from modest homes to the very expensive. One four-bedroom house in the exclusive Los Angeles suburb of Pacific Palisades was originally listed at $2.45 million; the price has been cut three times.