A developer who had hoped to beat the housing market blues by offering a free Tesla car worth $80,000 with the purchase of a McMansion-style home in south-east Auckland appears to have pulled the eye-catching offer from public view.
The listing for the five-bedroom home plus granny flat at 22 Dungloe Avenue, in Flat Bush, no longer features photos and details of the "free" electric car that had made headlines around the world.
The listing instead highlights the house features and the price tag of $1.789 million. Previously the property had been on the market for price by negotiation.
OneRoof contacted the listing agent, Kapil Rana, of Barfoot & Thompson, for comment and heard back via a spokeswoman, who said the property was currently under offer and that the potential buyers did not want the Tesla. However, she said if anyone else wanted the house with the Tesla, then the offer was still available to them.
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OneRoof previously reported that the developer behind the home had offered to buy the purchaser a new Tesla in a bid to make the listing stand out from the 100-plus new builds on the market in the area.
The agents told OneRoof that they had been inundated with phone and email enquiries within a day of updating the listing to include the car.
Barfoot & Thompson salesperson Kapil Rana, who is marketing the property with Prince Kapoor, had said the idea to giveaway a car came up in a brainstorming session when the home failed to attract much interest after being on the market for seven weeks.
The property is expected to have its Council Code of Compliance by Christmas and the developer, who mainly operates in central Auckland and built the Flat Bush home as a one-off project in the area, was eager to get the capital out of the property. "They just want a quick cashflow and just want to sell and move on,” Rana said.
The property had been priced the same as comparable properties in the area. Rana said last month before the listing changed to advertise a price tag of $1.789m: "Basically, the price point has to be above $1.8m plus – same as any house in the neighbourhood so nothing extraordinary with that,” he said.
The Tesla Model Y, valued at about $80,000, was to have been ordered in the colour of the buyer’s choice on the day the property goes unconditional with the aim of the car being delivered on settlement or soon after.
In the past real estate agents have tried to attract buyers in slower markets by offering anything from a car to holiday to the lucky new home owner, while in recent months others have been hiring musicians for open homes or using celebrities including former rugby player Carlos Spencer to front their marketing campaigns.
In 2019, a five-bedroom Waitoki property in the Rodney district, was listed for an impressive $6,295,000 and included the keys to a brand-new Maserati. In the same year another rural property in Waitoki was listed by the same agency - Century 21 - with the owner’s seller's McLaren sports car thrown in.
