Why stress yourself out trying to think of running a killer promo to flip your house quickly when big burly builders have 30 employees sitting on a conference room figuring it all out for you?

I picked up this Sunday’s Detroit Free Press and I couldn’t help notice some of the very smart promotions being done by builders to sell expensive houses – imagine the same thing running for your $125,000 house!

My 5 favorite strategies are:

1. $2000 IKEA Gift Card – “Add some new furniture to your hip new place. Receive a $2000 IKEA Gift Card when you close on a select condo.” IKEA is HOT HOT HOT - you have to check their Canton store out just for fun. Their prices are very reasonable so $2,000 will go a long way to buying some really cool stuff. Plus it is a fun promo.

2. “NO PAYMENTS TILL 2007” – Straight out of Art Van playbook – first time home buyers would love to buy a new home; move in and skip some payments till new year. And if you know about something about his businesess and financing then you would immediately know that this is ONLY 2 months of payments that they are talking about.

3. “ No Down Payment; No Closing Costs” – Oldie still works. There is magic in getting something “a house” for nothing. When nothing else works - this wil always sell a house.

4. “I will make your house payments for 6 months” – This is a little more expensive option then “No Payments Till 2007” but man oh man does it sounds sweet or what? I cannot wait to use this one and just see the look on a first time home buyer especially when they have been out driving out all day looking at houses and they can stop by mine and hear this. Stop them dead on their tracks.

5. “One Stop Shop – Get your house and mortgage all done right here” – we are all busy and the days of hanging up on buyers in Michigan if they don’t have a pre-approval letter from a mortgage company are long gone. You have to make it super easy for people to buy your homes. Hook up with a local mortgage company to do that. One of my Inner Circle members is actually making his loan officer show his houses to the buyers that the loan officer finds. Talks about really using OPT – Other Peoples Time in your Michigan real estate investment business.