How do you get consumers disgruntled about high gas prices to spend money on a newly built home in a scary real estate market?

One California builder thinks they’ve found the answer. Build a green home and they will come. Throw in a green car with the deal, however, and they will come in droves.

Trilogy, a central coast development built by Shea Homes, bestows a new Toyota Prius to every buyer who closes escrow on an eco-friendly home between May 17th and June 15th at their Parkway community in Nipomo, CA. The development includes a spa, a golf course and a fitness center where home prices range from $500,000 to just over a million dollars.

Trilogy Central Coast manager, Preston Holden, admits that it’s a challenge to sell homes, but beyond that they’ve had the best three-month stretch of home sales since the inception of the community.

Across the rest of the country, it was reported new home sales were up 3 percent for the first time in six months -- a nice boost, but not enough to make a dent yet, since the market is already at its lowest level in 17 years.

Trilogy is hoping to buck the trend offering this buy-a-house-get-a-car deal, but economists aren’t ready to predict an upswing for now.

Published: June 3, 2008

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A veteran of the real estate and homebuilding industries since 1986, Dena Kouremetis first joined Realty Times as a new homes writer in 1998. Since then, she has authored four books, written consumer columns on new homes issues for websites and newspapers all across the country, contributed to builder trade magazines, appeared as a guest expert on several radio shows and even created a ten-chapter podcast for LendingTree.com’s homebuilder website, iNest.com, now available on iTunes, entitled Uncharted Waters; Navigating the Purchase of a New Production Home. Kouremetis recently joined her local Folsom, CA Coldwell Banker office as a broker associate while continuing to write for the real estate industry. For the past three years, she has been training real estate agents for both the resale and new homes industries, putting her experience, research expertise and gift of expression to work to help others entering the business.