Gateshead Ikea homes sold with £5,000 worth of extras

Jan 22 2009 by Liz Hands, The Journal

GATESHEAD’S flat-pack Ikea houses are being offered with free holidays and gym memberships as the credit crunch continues to bite.

New bikes, garden accessories and season tickets on the Metro are also among the £5,000 worth of incentives that developers have put up for grabs in a bid to kick-start sales.

Twenty of the 36 apartments already built on the estate in Felling, opposite Gateshead International Stadium, remain empty, as a new wave of building – the first houses – are being completed.

And in a bid to entice people in quickly, the deals, worth about £5,000, are only available to people who reserve their new home this Saturday or Sunday and complete before the end of March.

The two- and three-bed houses are being sold for between £132,500 and £149,500 and are part of overall plans to build 119 homes on the site.

And those who snap up the first 13 houses will also get a year’s gym membership for two people, a family holiday, new bikes for the family, a Metro Saver season ticket, garden accessories and furniture, and their legal fees will be paid.

John Hanson, Live Smart@Home’s operations director, said: “We have already had six reservations for the houses and that is before people have even seen the show home, so we expect demand to be high now potential buyers will be able to look around the home. The houses will particularly appeal to couples or young families and whilst we acknowledge the credit crunch has made it difficult for our target market to obtain a mortgage, with interest rates falling further and with the incentives we are offering, we are hopeful that all the houses will be sold fairly quickly.”

Last night David Bexon, managing director of the SmartNewHomes.com website, said the deal was not unique in the current market for new homes.

He said: “Prices have fallen by somewhere in the region of 20% in the last 12 months – it is as good a time as there’s ever been to buy.

“There are some great deals out there. There’s very little activity in the housing market full stop. If people are in a position to move they can get some crazy deals.”

Just five apartments have been sold at the St James’s Village development, Live Smart@Home said. The company is the commercial arm of affordable housing provider Home, which is building the BoKlok properties in partnership with IKEA.

Another seven apartments are being rented and four people are on Live Smart@Home’s Try Before You Buy scheme, which allows people to rent for six months and then get their rental payments returned at the end of this period, minus a small administration fee, to put down as a deposit on a new home.