Our own approach is to award by district: a toaster oven for Mead Point purchases, a slice of bread (but artisan sourdough) for NoPo

Merry XL-mas from your broker! Rich house hunters are being baited by over-the-top closing gifts like a $3.2M Aston Martin and a 31-foot yacht

Champagne and fruit baskets are for suckers.

Well-heeled buyers on the hunt for big-ticket homes expect more — and luxury brokers are sating them with increasingly personal, unique and often mind-bogglingly extravagant closing gifts.

These days, brokers are giving their buyers lavish dinners in their new addresses with private chefs and original works of art. What’s more, they’ve even gifted them custom scents and music compositions commissioned for the residence, antiques, Hermès accoutrements, Louis Vuitton duffle bags with custom engravings and country club memberships.

Some sales even feature wheel-y eye-opening extras: an available $59 million penthouse in Miami comes with a $3.2 million sports car, while a just-sold $12.7 million Lake Tahoe home included an $80,000 Tesla Cybertruck. 

“I have given 10-foot-high safes, Chanel bags, [and put] a Bentley in the garage of an estate,” said a Palm Beach, Florida, broker who requested anonymity.

So who’s the sucker, really?

But not every broker in the luxury market is sold. South Florida Compass agent Michael Martirena called the phenomenon “extremely gimmicky” and “distasteful.”

“High net-worth individuals, they’re savvy, and these gimmicks scream like a red flag to be quite honest,” he said. “People want to get a concession, a credit and get a better deal in the number. They’re fully capable of buying their own cars. I love getting gifts that I would never buy for myself, but at the end of the day, they’re paying for it. So it’s not really a gift.”

Martirena said that the more extravagant the “gift,” the more likely it is to be built into the listing price. He said it’s not uncommon for buyers to negotiate a discount on a property by forgoing those gifts, add-ons and extras. And because big-ticket items like luxury cars are often reflected in the closing price, a resale without that item could actually lower the sticker value of the home.

As a side note, I found this bit of hypocrisy among the eco-conscious, five-home-owning, Lear Jet set amusing

Across the country, in Clear Creek Tahoe — a luxury development within Lake Tahoe’s premier mountain and golf gated community — broker Mike Dunn said he recently sold a $12.7 million new home thanks to the inclusion of a Tesla Cybertruck at close. (Those massive electric vehicles sell for about $80,000.)

Not only did the five-bedroom home come with more standard amenities like a golf simulator, a 12-person Jacuzzi and a six-car subterranean garage — but it was also built using Tesla’s solar roof and power-walls, including a battery storage system and generators allowing it to run fully off-grid.

“We’re selling Tahoe, not just real estate,” said Dunn, of Chase International Luxury Real Estate. “We’re selling the lifestyle here that people desire: enjoying the outdoors, recreation, wellness and having a place to create lasting family memories. There’s also a strong emphasis on the environment and this is the first whole Tesla home in the area. So we incentivized the sale with the Tesla Cybertruck.”