Developers in China are giving away Porsches to sell houses
After years of over-development, China has found itself with a glut of empty houses.
A stagnating economic climate has placed a ton of pressure on developers to move the vast unsold inventory as fast as possible.
And they plan to do it with the lure of a good old-fashioned German scream machine.
Back in May, the Guangdong Province's Hopson Development Holdings Ltd. reportedly offered a free Porsche - or up to 11 percent off the car's purchase price - to the first 30 buyers of apartments in their new Purple Dragon complex, located in the southern city of Guangzhou, according to Bloomberg.
Why offer a Porsche instead of a discount on the actual home? "In the past, price cuts have caused protests and sales disruptions by earlier buyers," writes Bloomberg Intelligence analyst Robert Fong. By offering an incentive with a vague value, the seller avoids angering previous buyers.
This is similar to the incentives that developers offered in August of last year, including things like iPhones, car washes, and discounts on shopping services.
So how did this little stunt play out for Hopson? Not bad. In the first three hours of inviting home buyers to their sales event, they sold 300 million Yuan of apartments still under construction, according to Bloomberg.