VANCOUVER — Got a beater car worth at least $5,400? You can trade that in as a down payment on a brand-new Vancouver condo.

That’s the pitch by InGastown, a new 61-unit condo development at 150 East Cordova, which launched an innovative program Wednesday banking on condo buyers’ willingness to go car-free in exchange for home ownership in Vancouver’s sky-high real estate market.

Car for a Condo lets car owners trade in their vehicles towards a condo unit in the gritty but fast-gentrifying neighbourhood just west of Main.

“Cars are a terrible asset,” said Cam Good, president of real estate marketing firm Key Marketing.

“For someone trying to get started in life and wanting to become a homeowner, taking a depreciating asset and literally turning it into an appreciating asset is a life-changing decision.”

The low buy-in of $5,400 is possible thanks to a two-per-cent down payment program offered by Vancity.

It allows qualified buyers to shell out only two per cent of, say, a $269,800 one-bedroom, 519-square-foot unit — although monthly payments will be required over the next 16 months of construction to get the buyer to at least a five-per-cent deposit before the building is completed in 2016.

Car for a Condo is just one of many lures condo developers and marketers are dangling to attract buyers in today’s less-frenzied real estate market.

Some developers offer credits or discounts off purchase prices. Others offer more imaginative lures.

In North Vancouver, Seylynn Village is raffling off a new home. Last spring, east Vancouver project Boheme Living offered a free Fiat to buyers of selected units.

InGastown, which is 40-per-cent sold, is taking a different tack.

Good, who came up with the gimmick after talking to buyers who were giving up their cars or who don’t own vehicles to begin with, is betting the appeal of a downtown location in an urban hub near transit will be enough for buyers to give up their car keys.

The development will not have any resident parking spaces. Homeowners automatically get a free Modo Car co-op membership, and access to two co-op vehicles parked on-site.

Potential buyers can bring their cars to the sales centre at 32 Water St., where an on-site appraiser can assess the value of the vehicle on the spot.

“It just connects the dots for most people,” said Good.

chchan@theprovince.com

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