The Gazzette.Net reports on spec home sales in Maryland. "The buyers of the custom-built home in the Village of Martin’s Additions will receive an added bonus for their roughly $2 million purchase, a fully loaded Acura SUV, with a three-year lease paid in full. For Chevy Chase builder Noel Fisher, who bought the lot and built the house, the promotion is a sign of the times."

"'Obviously with the market a little bit slower than it’s been in the recent past, I was trying to come up with an incentive to get a potential homeowner to come in and look at the house,' Fisher said."

"With a large inventory of speculatively built houses available in the southern part of Montgomery County, the formerly red-hot real estate market has seen the mercury move a tad closer to lukewarm, say builders and real estate agents. As a result, builders with speculative houses on the market are coming up with creative ideas to woo the suddenly more discriminating buyers."

"'There are 65 houses right now in Bethesda-Chevy Chase above the price of $2 million,' said Jane Fairweather, a Bethesda Realtor. 'And 51 percent are spec houses, empty, brand-new, accruing-interest-every-month spec houses. There’s huge choice, with very few buyers right now.'"

"'As custom spec builders we got a little bit spoiled with the way things were a year ago,' Fisher said. 'We definitely have to do what we have to do to get people in there and get an edge over our competition.'"

"As for offering a new car to a prospective buyer, it’s a nice gimmick, but not likely to be a major selling point, Fairweather said. 'Rarely can you entice somebody with an Acura who’s going to pay $2 million-plus on a house,' she said. 'If you want to give them a Rolls, you want to give them a Mercedes, OK. What it does do for the builder is it gets him noticed.'"

"With a possible decline in speculative building, Fairweather foresees a corresponding reduction in the number of houses being torn down and replaced. The result could be new opportunities for young first-time homebuyers, as well as retirees on fixed incomes, in communities that have lost most of their affordable housing in recent years."

"'Their prices will go down,' Fairweather said of the older homes, 'because an end-user isn’t going to pay top dollar, which I think is a good thing. All this stuff goes in cycles anyway.'"