Please buy my house, I’m throwing in a convertible, a yacht and a well stocked cellar….
Written by Mike Carter on January 23, 2008Excuse the misleading title, I’m not actually selling a house and I’m certainly not offering any highly desirable freebies, instead I am referring to an interesting article published in The Times this week describing the latest craze in ‘buyer incentives’.
Everyone loves a free gift, and incentives are becoming more and more alluring. Take magazines, it used to be exciting to crazily rub your wrist on the page and to smell of Calvin Klein for free, now a girl can expect to see a free pair of flip flops, a novel or a full size mascara stuck to the front of a magazine. And apparently incentives are on the up for house buyers too. New builds have often been pitched with free white goods, but a free holiday to St. Lucia to take away the stress of the house hunting process? That’s a bit more interesting than a fridge freezer.
As the property market slows down, sellers may want to look for new fangled ways to boost interest in their property. The Times found sellers offering all sorts of goodies, including a month long getaway, a free Porsche (worth £20k) and one couple were offering first class season tickets to Kings Cross with their Lincolnshire property.
Perhaps the most interesting case in the article was that of the couple who were giving away a free place at the local private prep school with their property, the buyer would have to stump up the school fees, but the lucky child would get a coveted place in the school where waiting lists currently stretch into 2011. The sellers run the school, so they are in a rare position to offer such a freebie, but what do the experts think of these incentives? Are they a good way to sell a property?
“I would generally advise against incentives,” says Lindsay Cuthill, a director in Savills’s Fulham office. “It’s not the right sort of approach to selling a property.”
And maybe he’s right, a free car/holiday/maid may spark interest in a property but it can certainly make the seller look desperate, and it could make the buyers think the property is on at the wrong price.
If anyone reading has a Porsche that they’re looking to give away, then I’ll be very happy to help you out.
Technorati Tags: Real estate, property, buyer incentives
May 9th, 2008 at 9:50 am
Count me in too with the free Porsche…..:)
Having worked in the house building industry for several years, incentives are heavily relied upon in a difficult market. Incentives can range from anything from a full interior design package, free John Lewis (or whoever) vouchers, to your mortgage being paid for a year. It seems to work for house builders!
June 24th, 2008 at 10:15 am
[...] an interesting way to start afresh, we’ve talked about house sales with extras thrown in before here on the Zoomf Blog but never quite to this [...]