It slices, it dices, it will take you dog for a walk and it is only $19.99. Wait! We'll send you three of them!

Ah, the world of incentives and infomercials. As funny as we may find them, the simple truth is using incentives to sell products work. All those infomercials you continually see? They wouldn't exist if they didn't move products.

Once you decide to sell your home, the vital thing to remember is you are not selling the place where you raised a family or generated some great memories. Nope. You are selling a product. The potential buyers really don't care if your son learned to ride his bike down the driveway. They want to make their own memories.

Once you come around to the idea that you are selling a product, the idea of using incentives to do so isn't much more of a leap. Think about it for a minute. Most of the country is in a down market. This means there is a lot of inventory on the market and buyers can be very picky.

How do you stick out with buyers? You will be told by real estate gurus that making improvements to the kitchen, bathroom and such will do this. But what if you live in a community where most of the houses are in good shape and pretty similar? Why not add a non-real estate incentive?

I was watching CNN the other day and they were reporting on a couple in New Jersey that were selling a home for $900,000 or so. They had come up with an interesting incentive. If you bought their house, they were throwing in a new Mercedes! That may sound pricey, but it really depends on what they paid for their home. If they paid $500,000, the Mercedes probably wouldn't hurt to bad at $60,000 or so. More importantly, they would get their home sold.

Do you need to offer a Mercedes? Of course, not. You can be creative. Do you have a vacation home somewhere? Offer to give the buyer of your home free lodging in the vacation home for two weeks every year. Offer to buy and install a hot tub of the buyer's choice and so on.

A classic incentive that would work would be a cruise for two. It sounds like a big incentive, but will cost you $3,000 to $7,500. That sounds like a lot, but is minuscule compared to the amount you are selling the home for. There are endless incentives you can come up with if you get creative. Try thinking outside of the box. What would stand out to you?