An unpleasant online ad for a house is a surprise hit

An unpleasant online ad for a house is a surprise hit

Posted by John P. Bradford // October 9, 2016

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When trying to sell something, you’d put your best foot forward to seal yourself a deal.

Not for home owner Kobie Hughes, who struggled to get interest for her home in the Australian city of Perth with a straight-laced ad. So she decided to do the opposite and make the place sound abhorrent.

While it might appear to be a typical suburban two bedroom home, Hughes has pitched it as a “Financial Black Hole for Rent” on classifieds website Gumtree.

Sign up and you won’t be dealing with landlords, she like prefers the term “Earth Guardians.” It’s an effort to “try and remarket Medina to hippies.”

Image: GUMTREE

Hughes claims to have tried and failed marketing directly to “soon-to-be released parolees,” saying she her ad was promptly shut down by the corrections department and their neighbours.

So what do you get for A$300 a week? You’ll get “very gardeny” gardens that “hide weeds well,” featuring veggie plots for “Willie Nelson types.” There is also a pub close to the home, complete with “feet-smelling carpet and may or may not still have a wee trough against the bar.”

You can expect women to be welcome at the bar too, where they can “enjoy feeling like you’ve stepped back into the 1930s when an apoplectic old man appears at your elbow to give you directions to back to your kitchen.”

Avoid the local “nightclub” however, if you enjoy your nose being central to your face. Certainly sounds like a friendly area.

Image: Gumtree

The negative ad has worked wonders, with now more than 12,000 views of the listing and numerous phone calls and messages.

“I got 20 messages from people yesterday and 15 people said they are interested in renting the house,” Hughes told WA Today on Thursday. “And I’ve got a few comments from people who thought the ad was funny.”

Making people laugh was the exact result she wanted, after her first ad which was up for four weeks flunked with no one responding. “So I decided to try something different,” she told the news outlet.

Turns out reverse psychology kinda works, hey?

Read more: http://mashable.com/2016/10/06/gumtree-house-ad-perth/