It's a wild and wacky residential real estate market out there. Builders are slashing prices like "Crazy Eddie," sellers are throwing in cars, TVs and other inducements, buyers are increasingly trying to cancel contracts and listings are moving from one agent to another like a game of musical chairs. "It is a funny market," said Randy Douglass of ERA/Douglass Realtors in Montvale. "Buyers are nervous. They hear Jim Cramer say on CNBC, "Don't buy a house now." Sellers are feeling shaky. Particularly if they bought their homes in the last couple of years, they're stuck between a rock and a hard place. And Realtors were wondering why good, well-priced houses aren't selling." The heart of the problem: Buyers don't know when it's the right time to buy. If they buy now and the market keeps falling, will they have paid too much? Will they be unable to recoup their investment? And, so, like Hamlet, they hesitate and cogitate. "There's little incentive to buy," said Stephanie Heyer of the McBride Agency in Franklin Lakes. "Buyers know that if they agree to a price today, they could get it cheaper a week later," Just about every seller you to talk says he doesn't want to sound desperate but sellers try all kinds of things to get perspective buyers to act. Last month, the Red Bank based Hovnanian Enterprises threw a 72 hour "Deal of the Century," in which it cut home prices by as much as $100,000 in 19 states. Hovnanian spokesman Doug Fenichel said the intent of the national sales event was to get buyers in motion. "People have told us that they are ready and eager to buy homes," Fenichel said. But they felt that if they waited they might get a better deal." Hovnanian reported more than 2,100 gross sales for its Deal of the Century. But, having jump-started sales once with a grand gesture, will the homebuilder be able to keep sales chugging along in the market that is likely to be sluggish for a year or more? The National Association of Homebuilders surveyed about 300 homebuilders of all sizes in the first half of October and found that nearly 60 percent of all builders and 75 percent of larger companies had recently cut prices. The average price cut was 8 percent, and more than a third had dropped prices by more than a third had dropped prices by more than 10 percent. But only half of the builders said their price cuts had worked to increase sales or limit cancellations. Builders are not only cutting prices for homebuyers, they're also trying to motivate real estate agents to motivate buyers by offering bonuses to agents. Hovnanian does this in some communities, Fenichel said. The developer American Properties is offering bonuses of $250,000 to real estate brokers whose buyers close on Bellaire luxury town homes in Demarest before the end of 2007. Bob Lindsay, a top-selling agent with Coldwell Banker, Wayne, said that builders large and small are offering financial inducements to real estate agents. "Typically builders will offer an extra half percent [in commission] or a $5,000 bonus tied to the agent putting the home under contract within a certain time frame," he said. And individual sellers are pulling out all the stops, throwing in freebies to motivate prospective buyers by giving them added value. Derek Eisenberg, president of MultipleListingSystem.com, an online, for sale-sale-by-owner, flat fee listing service, said he has had several sellers say that they would leave a wall-mounted plasma TV for the buyer if the buyer closed by a certain date or paid a certain price. "I have had one seller say that instead of turning back the golf club membership, he would pay the transfer fee and include the membership in the sale," Eisenberg said. (We are talking many thousands of dollars.) "Others say they will pay for the buye's attorney, title insurance, points, appraisal, termite tests, home inspection or home warranty." Cathy Denis, a broker at Century 21 Mainstream in New Milford, had a seller who included a Corvette in the $779,500 price for a 12 year old center hall colonial. All the ads featured the Corvette in front of the home. After 93 days on the market the home sold in July for $675,000 -minus the car, which the sellers sold separately. Mark Nogid is selling a completely renovated and expanded Franklin Lakes home that was owned by the president of the New York Stock Exchange in the early 1900s. Nogid lived in the house for a year, moved out to fix it up, and then decided to sell it. For his $4 million asking price, Nogid is throwing in some extras. "We're including eight magnificent fireplaces plumbed with gas, surround sound, six or seven plasma TVs, two cappuccino/espresso machines, a steam shower, really decadent stuff," Nogid said. And, at 8,500 square feet, buyers are getting tremendous value in this property at this price." The battle isn't over when the buyer and seller agree on price and extras, and the buyer signs the contract to buy. Many Realtors talk about increasingly prevalent "buyers' remorse," when - having signed on the dotted line - buyers get cold feet and use attorney review, the appraisal or the home inspection as an opportunity to get out of the contract. "The last couple of deals I had were both killed," said Gershon Adjaye of Keller Williams Realty in North Bergen. "The buyer and seller agree on a price and all of a sudden out of nowhere the buyers want additional money off, usually after the home inspection. One buyer wanted another 25 grand off, he said the floors were a little wobbly." There's a crisis of consumer confidence among the sellers as well. Buyers frequently go to new listing agents if their home doesn't sell within the three to six months of the original listing contract. "I thought she was my friend," said one agent, who asked not to be named, about a seller who moved her multimillion-dollar listing to a new agency when the initial listing contract expired. Denis, of Century 21, was floored when an older couple selling their home did not list with her agent because they thought Denise priced their home too high. "I came in with a price in the low fives," said Denise. "They put it on at 459,000. That's the first time I ever lost a listing because the buyers thought we came in too high." What can an agency say to buyers who are in approach-avoidance mode - who want or need to buy but are worried they'll pay too much? "Buyers are just nervous about the whole process, and, if they weren't fully prepared from the get-go, they get buyer's remorse, "said Nelson Chen of The Chen Agency in Fort Lee. "Attorney review is not the time to cancel the deal. I much rather you [the prospective buyer] not make an offer in the first place. Now you can take the time, as opposed to a couple of years ago, when you had to make an offer by 2 p.m." Lindsay, of Coldwell Banker, Wayne, said he advises people who might be transferred out of the area in a year or two that they might be better off sitting on the sidelines and not buying in this market. He reminds prospective buyers that real estate remains a solid investment for the long haul, and they need to consider the trade-offs. "If you wait a year or two and mortgage rates go up, home prices could go down a little more, but you could end up paying more for your mortgage," he said. Many agents say the best strategy for selling in this market may be aggressively low pricing that encourages multiple bids. "If somebody else wants the house besides you, it makes you believe you're in the right price range," said Douglass of ERA/ Douglass in Montvale. "It's a win-win situation." And, should the winning bidder get cold feet, the other bidders may be back-ups.