'Free Ferrari' offer fails to sell £1m house

In December last year Duncan Jones said he would give away his Ferrari F430 Spider, worth £100,000, to entice offers on Tall Pines, a six-bedroom property in Henbury Road, Westbury-on-Trym, in Bristol.

The 28-year-old bought the Ferrari specifically to give it away with the mock-Georgian home after struggling to find a buyer in the months after it was put on the market in September last year - even when the asking price was cut by £300,000.

He says three buyers were interested in the three-storey house but were unable to get mortgages because lenders were asking for larger deposits as a result of the economic downturn.

Giving up hope of selling the house, Mr Jones submitted a planning application to Bristol City council in May to convert Tall Pines into eight offices after several start-up businesses had expressed an interest in renting rooms.

He says the unoccupied mansion is costing his business B&P Jones Consultants thousands of pounds each week and an eight-week wait for a decision from planners has meant he has had to make nine of his staff redundant.

Mr Jones had also planned to move his 15 staff from his offices in Wraxall to Tall Pines and rent out the Wraxall building for residential use or holiday lets.

"I can't afford to have a £1-million pound house sitting there doing nothing," he told the Bristol Evening Post.

"We had three people interested in buying but they had to drop out because they couldn't get the finance.

"Instead of asking people for a £100,000 or £150,000 deposit, the mortgage lenders were asking for £300,000 or £400,000."