Victoria property ad raises eyebrows for wild details

A property seller in Victoria has attracted nationwide attention for his creative approach to advertising his quaint block in Rye.

Bastiaan Verway is the wordsmith behind a wonderfully mysterious advertisement for a property in Victoria, which ends with an adorable request to “please” buy the land.

Mr Verway paints a colourful picture of 13 Tarawill Street property in Rye in his self-listed ad, boasting that it’s “located on a very pretty and hilly part of the Rye front beach”.

“It is non-densely treed with tea-tree and some other tree types,” he writes of the 770 square metre property.

The obscure ad is complete with just one photo – a mobile phone picture of a computer screen showing the Google maps street view of the block.

“It is surrounded with multistorey modern buildings at the side and the back,” Mr Verway says, adding the “street is modern narrow and windy and comes to a rapid dead-end”.

“From the SKY it looks impressive and centrally located. It is a quiet area to live with very few active neighbours.”

He closes out the ad saying: “we will accept best and closest offer now – HURRY! – Please”.

While Mr Verway remains in disbelief he hasn’t been able to offload the land since purchasing it in 2020 – and listing it shortly thereafter – its possible his price tag has something to do with it.

This is the photo being used to advertise small $660,000 block. Picture: realestate/Google Maps

He is advertising the property for $660,000 – over half a million dollars more than the $17,000 he paid for it.

Speaking with news.com.au, Mr Verway claimed he had been advised the property was worth $615,000 and he believed remaining within 10 per cent of that value was reasonable.

The land was previously advertised at $715,000 after entering the market at $705,000 and later peaking at $765,000, Sydney Morning Herald reported. Early last year it dropped to a low of $615,000.

Mr Verway, who was tight lipped about whether or not he owned other properties, remained optimistic he will eventually sell the land for somewhere close to his asking price.

As for the ad, he said he typed it up following a trip to the property.

“I just went there and wrote out what I saw, and wrote down what I felt,” he said.

When someone eventually buys the block, Mr Verway hopes they will build a three-storey house on it, so they can catch a glimpse of the ocean.

“As long as the building is high and at the rear, they will get some views,” he said.

As for the photo he used in the ad, he said he had been meaning to have that changed for some time.

“I’ve been trying to change that for quite a while. We’ve had some problems with the photos but I’d love to change it,” he said.

The suburb’s median house price has risen considerably in the past five years, with Domain data reporting a 98.1 per cent rise, according to Sydney Morning Herald.