Sellers put $100,000 price tag on buyers

Wanted: real estate buyer. Reward: $100,000.

With the market grim nationwide, home sellers have been offering incentives such as Harley-Davidson motorcycles and wide-screen TVs. But a Hawaii couple is upping the ante.

About five months ago Linda Harris and her husband, David Bangert, of Kailua listed their two high-end Hawaii properties. Response was lackluster, so they recently decided to include a $100,000 reward for anyone who locates a buyer soon.

“It’s definitely worth it to speed up the process for us because we would like to have it over with,” said Harris, 62, who wants to retire.

One property is a 2,500-square-foot, four-bedroom home on a 35,000-square-foot oceanfront lot -- complete with a stream alongside it -- in the Windward Oahu community of Hauula. It’s listed for $1.7 million, down from $2.3 million.

The other property is a 38-acre undeveloped parcel near the ocean in the Keaau area of the Big Island, offered at $1.2 million.

“We’ve had some bites, [but] at this point in time in the real estate world, it’s not whether people want it,” Harris said, “it’s whether they can finance it.”

The $100,000 reward depends on a property selling at list price. If it sells for less, the reward is 3% of the sale price.

“I’m absolutely positive that there are people that would love to be able to generate that kind of money in this kind of way,” Harris said.

The cash bounty is on top of the commissions for agents, but that’s fine with Harris and her husband.

“With a bounty, I can put it out to the world and have an army of bounty hunters looking for a buyer,” Harris said.

She and her husband, who both hold Harvard doctorates, teach business strategy and policy, entrepreneurship and leadership at the University of Hawaii’s business college. They spread the word about the bounty through friends, colleagues and MBA students.

The bounty was first reported as a blurb in a column in MidWeek, a free weekly newspaper on Oahu.

One hopeful “bounty hunter” has created a website advertising the properties.

Harris believes the couple’s offer is legal under Hawaii law so long as the bounty is collected by someone who is not a real estate agent.

The state Department of Commerce and Consumer Affairs said it was the first time it had heard of such an offer and urged all parties to check with an attorney to make sure it was legal.

Bounty hunters must register with the couple before submitting potential buyers.

“They can’t just call us with a telephone book. It has to be somebody that’s going to look for the property,” Harris said.