Motivated Hawaii developer piles on incentives
Mercedes-Benzes for customers, big advances for brokers on list
HONOLULU — A developer in Honolulu recently began offering consumers a Mercedes-Benz on a three-year lease if they buy a unit in one of three towers.
Howard Hughes Corp. is offering the Mercedes incentive along with a few others in an attempt to spark sales at three of its towers, the Honolulu StarAdvertiser reported on Monday. Hughes Corp. also is trying to give real estate agents extra motivation for getting customers to buy Ward Village condos, offering to advance brokers 75 per cent of their sale commission.
The third incentive offers to pay the sale-commission expense of homeowners who sell their home and buy a Ward Village condo.
“We think that’s pretty exciting,” said Bill Pisetsky, the developer’s senior vice-president of sales and marketing.
For the third incentive, there are some limits on the commission amount in case the condo buyer sells a home worth far more than the one purchased, Pisetsky said.
Hughes Corp. has a master plan that envisions development of 16 towers with 4,300 homes along with one million square feet of retail and restaurant space on its 60-acre property, known as Ward Centers.
The company recently reported that Waiea and Anaha are almost sold out and Ae’o is about two-thirds sold.
About 10 units, priced from $4.4 million to $36 million US, are available at Waiea, which has 174 units. At the 317-unit Anaha, about 15 units remain for $2.9 million to $14 million. And at Ae’o, about 175 of 466 units remain unsold and are priced at $800,000 to $2 million.
“As we move into sales of our new projects, we will always be on the lookout for fresh and innovative ways to market our existing inventory,” said Andrea Galvin, a Hughes Corp. spokeswoman.