Property special: Bait for buyers - Telegraph

Property special: Bait for buyers - Telegraph

Tough times for house sellers. Desperate measures are clearly called for. As bait for buyers of new houses, some builders are offering to add a conservatory at no extra cost. Others in the London area have been chucking in the price of a year’s season ticket on the railways.

But what incentives can the private seller add? Once you have observed the rituals for that all-too-rare viewing (bake bread, brew coffee), what is left? Some desperate vendors have gone so far as to bung in their cars. Last year, a man in Buckinghamshire offered to give his 36-year-old Triumph TR6 to anybody who paid the full asking price of £895,000 for his house. A Nottinghamshire vendor said he would hand over the keys to his new Ford Ka to anybody who gave him £239,500 for his four-bedroom house.