Desperate developers offer freebies to offload luxury flats

Housebuilders are offering to pay buyers’ estate agent fees in a desperate attempt to offload luxury new-builds.

Oakley, a developer in Sussex, said it would cover the costs as an incentive for buying an apartment at the Argentum development in Hove, according to an email seen by The Telegraph.

A two-bedroom, two-bathroom flat in the beachfront development listed on property portal Zoopla costs £795,000. If a buyer were downsizing from a property worth £800,000, they would save nearly £10,400 in estate agent fees.

In the UK, traditional high street estate agent fees average about 1.3pc of the final property sale price, according to property website Rightmove.

This offer however is dwarfed by the four and five-figure freebies offered by the larger operators, as housebuilders battle with a sluggish market.

Berkeley Group last month offered to pay buyers more than £40,000 in private school fees covering up to two years at St John’s Preparatory and Senior School at its Trent Park housing estate in North London.

L&Q Homes, which sells shared ownership flats, has offered a TUI holiday voucher worth £2,000.

Another regional developer, Jones Homes, offers a stamp duty contribution to attract would-be buyers.

Others included free cars and service charge holidays.

Despite the incentives on offer, new-builds are failing to sell across the country.

Nationally, one in eight new-builds has been on the market for longer than six months, according to research by Octane Capital, a property finance company.

Andy Morrison, of housing company UK Property Development, told The Telegraph that a “bottleneck of completed stock” had been compounded by conflict in the Middle East, which sent mortgage rates soaring.

“With the precedent of last autumn’s prolonged speculation around the Budget, some in the more expensive regions, such as London, may be apprehensive about the future direction of policy.”

Meanwhile, experts have warned buyers to consider the spiralling service charges that come with leasehold properties, which is the fee paid to cover maintenance.

The average charge soared to £2,400 a year in 2025, estate agency Hamptons found.

Leasehold popularity has been steadily declining, dropping from 28pc of all completions in 2008 to 22pc in 2025, according to Hamptons.

Harry Scoffin, of campaign group Free Leaseholders, said:

“When developers are basically bribing people to take stock off their hands, you know there’s a problem with the product they’re pushing.

“After years of leasehold scandals, buyers have woken up to the debt servitude of being a leaseholder and are skipping flats altogether.”

James Nightingale, of property portal Homefinders’ AI, added that developers were offering incentives rather than reducing prices as they wanted the properties

“to look valuable”.

He also claimed builders were “offering estate agents higher commission” if they brought in buyers.

The cost of homeownership has already soared under Labour after Rachel Reeves, Healey’s predecessor, lowered the stamp duty threshold and increased the surcharge on second homes.

A spokesman for Oakley said:

“Although the current housing market is certainly challenging, incentives have long been a standard and effective part of the new-build sector.

“The ‘Move Maker’ package is not a new form of response to market conditions but is an example of an incentive we have successfully used before, in partnership with our developer clients, including during much stronger market periods.”

At last  recognition that leaseholders need to be freed

The idea of Harry Scoffin being treated with anything but contempt by the Telegraph would have been absurd only a year ago.

I am so proud to have witnessed this rise to influencer in chief because the fellow is so damned good.