The Pasadena Star has this report from California. "Jim and Gerry Balazs' La Habra home has been on the market for eight months, so they agreed to spice up the offer by throwing in a new car or truck. Their broker, Mark Tacconelli, got the idea from a similar offer in Virginia. Tacconelli suggested a pickup truck to keep with the fixer-upper theme."

"'We were thinking of a truck. You have a truck to go back and forth to Home Depot, Tacconelli said."

"He had tried lowering the price or taking the home off the market, but other home prices in the neighborhood were adjusted accordingly, he said. 'Buyers are much more picky now,' he said. 'They take a lot longer. You're competing against more houses.'"

"Including a car as a sales incentive is done more often with builders who don't want to devalue the price of their subdivisions and who want to show some level of sales activity, said Vince Malta, 2006 president of the California Association of Realtors."

"'I think you look at it both ways,' Malta said of the car offer. 'It attracts interest in the listing, but the downside is it may be counterproductive in some instances in that it might be masking an overpriced property.'"

"Jim and Gerry Balazs are living at a retirement center in Irvine and hoping they get a good return on their investment. 'We have to live off of something and our money is tied up here,' Jim Balazs said. 'We don't sing the blues, but it gets a little frustrating. The money we get out of the house we would put in the bank, and we would feel more comfortable.'"

The San Francisco Gate. "Most recent numbers suggest that the Bay Area (is) no longer a market in which sellers can set their price according to comparable properties in the neighborhood and then wait for the bidding war to send the price over the moon."

"According to DataQuick, Bay Area home sales slowed in July to their lowest levels in 10 years, while prices increased at their slowest pace since 2003. Translation: It's not a seller's market anymore. The only problem? Many sellers don't want to hear that."

"Indeed, as the real estate market comes to a screeching halt, agents are finding themselves in the unfamiliar role of dietitians for sellers whose eyes bigger than their buildings. 'It's a classic dilemma in the changing dynamics of real estate,' explains (realtor) John Asdourian."

"Of course, real estate agents have a vested interest in bringing sellers up to speed as quickly as possible. The more homes languish on the market, the worse their bottom line in commissions."

"Some agents are less politic about the frustrations of dealing with unrealistic sellers. 'She's in for an education, all right,' one agent, who asked to remain nameless, told me after dishing the dirt on a prospective client. 'She thinks her condo is worth more than it is, she wants to live there while it's up for sale, she doesn't want to stage it and she doesn't want to do a speck of work on it. Not even painting!' He pauses. 'Well, she's gonna learn the hard way, and it's not going to be pretty.'"

"Indeed, one of the only generalizations about the current Bay Area market is that although prices may be headed south, at this moment it's more of a micro market than ever. Some houses get many offers, while others don't get a single one, even after multiple price reductions. And this is a hard lesson to learn for sellers ready to take the money and run and buyers willing to only play lowball."