From the Courier Post:
Soft housing market sparks homebuilders’ sales gimmicks
By LISA GRZYBOSKI
Anand Ramanathan was approaching the gas station where he normally fills up when he saw them — people dressed as dollar bills holding signs that said “Free Gas.”
“It’s a great thing, really,” said Ramanathan, who chuckled at his good fortune as gas streamed into his car’s tank around noon Thursday.
The gas at the CITGO on Route 70 across from the former Garden State Park wasn’t free, but it was dirt cheap — 10 gallons for $1.
And only the first 100 lucky motorists to pull into the service station after 11:30 a.m. got it.
As hordes of drivers jockeyed for position at the pumps, they also got glossy, full-color advertisements from Beazer Homes, a national home builder that owns 10 residential developments in South Jersey.
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In the last few years, however, such inducements were virtually nonexistent because of the red hot market for new and resale homes, Van Osten said.The fact that companies such as Beazer Homes are offering incentives and, in some cases, doing it creatively to grab attention is a reflection on the state’s housing market, which cooled considerably in 2006, said Patrick O’Keefe, CEO of the New Jersey Builders Association.
For example, building permits for home construction were down by 25 percent in 2006 from the previous year in South Jersey, Van Osten said. Statewide, sales of existing homes were down about 17 percent last year and new housing starts were off by a similar amount, O’Keefe said.
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People in line for gas Thursday said they’ve seen the effects of the housing market cool-down in their own lives.“Two homes on my block have been up for sale for a while. In the past few years, they would have been sold by now,” said Bobbi Ferrick of Collingswood, who was running errands when she heard about the giveaway on the radio.
“The cost of housing just got too high,” Van Osten said. “People were priced out of the market.”