They’ll Pay Your Mortgage!
Thornton Place, a big, new project near Northgate with cinemas and a creek, is offering prospective condo buyers a layoff-protection plan in hopes of spurring sales in this sour market.
Buy a condo, the developers say, and if you lose your job within a year they’ll make your mortgage payments for up to six months.
It’s a variation on a theme pioneered by automaker Hyundai, which since January has let buyers return new cars if they get laid off within a year.
Thornton Place’s 109 condos have been on the market since last summer. None has sold, and now the complex is nearly finished.
“We were looking at what would get people off the fence,” said Jeff Cook, president and chief operating officer of Stellar Holdings, one of the companies building Thornton Place. “We think there’s a pretty big pent-up demand for housing.”
Condos, like single-family homes, have been selling at a snail’s pace. Just 205 closed in King County in February, according to the Northwest Multiple Listing Service — down 48 percent from the same month a year earlier.
Some developers are auctioning off unsold units at steeply discounted prices. Others are offering buyers incentives: No homeowners’ association dues for a year, for instance, or a promise to refund the difference if the asking price for similar units drops.
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