Housbuilders forced into desperate measures

Free car with your new home: slump in housing market brings desperate offers

Gráinne Gilmore and Judith Heywood, Times Online - 11 July 2008

Forget slashing the asking price, offer a free car instead. This is the approach that a developer in Newquay is hoping will help him to beat the sales slump as he tries to sell 65 flats.

Another developer is simply threatening to sue buyers who pull out of purchasing luxury flats in a £25 million development in Plymouth.

The increasingly desperate measures being employed by housebuilders to sell their properties reflect the dire state of the housing market.

Barratt Developments became the latest to announce job losses, saying yesterday that it was cutting 1,200 posts, a fifth of its workforce. Other leading homebuilders, including Taylor Wimpey and Redrow, have already said that they are slashing thousands of positions. Mark Clare, chief executive of Barratt, gave warning that job cuts across the industry could reach 60,000 out of 300,000 - full article