GLOSSY marketing material depicting opulent lifestyles has been employed to sell luxury residential developments in Perth’s inner city.
The economic slowdown and poor investor confidence have resulted in a number of unsold inner city apartments and forced developers to offer bonuses including cars to move property.
Finbar International tried to lure clients to the Wellington Place development with a competition to win a new Alfa Romeo.
Clients who bought into the development went into a barrel to win a new Alfa Romeo.
“ It was the first time we’d ever tried it and it got a bit of bad publicity, at the end of the day people didn’t want to risk their name being pulled out of a hat,” Finbar International projects director Rick Rimington said.
“We sold ten units over that period and only four wanted to go in the deal.”
Mr Rimington said Finbar focused on attracting clients to their developments through real value for money.
“Our principle is value for money, our policy is to aim for 5 per cent under the current market value,” he said.
“The market is very tough at the moment.”
There are two distinct markets for inner city apartments owner-occupiers and investors.
Mr Rimington claims owner-occupiers now make up about 60 per cent of the market with investor sales falling off due to poor investor confidence.
Since the introduction of the GST, Finbar claim the residential market in the inner city has changed.
“The market is very price sensitive in the inner city, there’s a lot of stock and there are projects on land bought pre-GST that are still coming on,” Mr Rimington said.
Mirvac-Fini has invested heavily in research to accurately target marketing for inner city developments.
Project director Peter Gianoli claimed the advertising budget for Mirvac-Fini was in excess of $1 million.
