Estate agents are split on the usefulness of using incentives, such as a free car or school place, to persuade prospective buyers to purchase a property, it has been reported.

With house price growth slowing, it is extremely important that sellers make their homes as attractive as possible to potential buyers in order to ensure their home stands out from all the other properties on the market.

According to the Times, some homeowners are throwing in a range of ''freebies'' in with the house, including stylish cars, luxury holidays and school places in a bid to make their property impossible to resist.

Tom Donnelly of Humberts told the newspaper that after the owners of a hard to sell property in Grantham offered to include a season ticket for first-class travel to London in the price of their property, "it sold the following weekend for the full asking price".

However, not all agents are as enthusiastic about the strategy, with Andrew Scott of Strutt & Parker Lane Fox commenting: "The worst way to sell anything is to make yourself look desperate."

Lindsay Cuthill, a director at the Fulham office of Savills, also expressed reservations, adding: "I would generally advise against incentives."