Brutal honesty garners attention

An Auckland real estate agent has made a point of brutal honesty to help sell a rundown listing.

The property in West Auckland’s Daytona Rd, advertised by City Sales, is described as a ‘‘group home gone bad’’ and that this ‘‘neglected, rundown ragamuffin needs urgent care’’.

While most agents tend to talk up a property’s selling points, this listing only goes as far as saying parking is one of its few attributes.

When asked why City Sales had taken that approach, marketing manager Scott Dunn said: ‘‘It’s just the God-honest truth. It’s awful. The seller wants to get out and we thought honesty is the best policy.’’

Curiously, this approach is working well for the company.

‘‘This is probably the most popular property we have advertised this year . . . but a lot of people are just keen to look at it because it’s so dreadful and others may just want to knock it down,’’ Dunn said.

‘‘With bigger corporates and franchises, things have to go through a lot of people to get approved. We’re independent. If it shocks people, that’s fine . . . We are trying to get it sold.’’

It was the land that held the value and this property was likely to do well, he said.

‘‘It’s anyone’s guess with an auction at this point but our buyer feedback has started around the $450,000 mark,’’ Dunn said.

Nigel Jeffries, head of Trade Me Property, said: ‘‘This is definitely some creative marketing and we think it’s great the agents are trying something a little different to capture Kiwis’ attention. We haven’t seen a property listing with such a brutally honest description in a while and we think the honesty is brilliant.’’

It’s a tried-and-true method for family-run City Sales.

‘‘We once ran an ad for a rundown property in Remuera with the headline ‘Bring the Bulldozer’ and we had a similar response,’’ Dunn said.