Would you like to buy Vic Deals?

With over 250,000 members, Vic Deals is one of New Zealand's largest community Facebook pages, and it could be yours for a cool $1 billion.

Back around 2012, Grant Burley bought the community page for no more than "a slab of Tuis and some Homegrown tickets," says current owner Charlie Ward.

Ward and his brother Michael purchased the popular page off Burley in 2022 as a way to dip their toes in business, but he wouldn't tell RNZ Nights how much they paid.

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"I was under an NDA, it's probably lapsed now. But out of respect for Grant, I'll keep that private... you're spending money, it's gotta wash its face at the very least. In an ideal world you'd be taking a bloody shower in it," he says.

"I was young, I was 19 when I bought it, and I just wanted to cut my teeth on some sales work, just get a little starter into business and that's exactly what this was. It did that very, very well, and it was just a bloody cool thing to own."

Now, it's time to pass the baton once again. Vic Deals is up for sale on TradeMe, with an April 30 deadline. The asking price? A casual $1 billion.

Vic Deals began as an online trading forum for Victoria University students. Burley spotted a business opportunity to build a broader audience beyond the 30,000 followers it had at the time.

It grew into a go-to platform where thousands now buy and sell, find flatmates, promote events, gossip, find lost wallets/cats/dogs and debate the latest issues in the capital.

According to Ward, there was no shortage of bidders when he nabbed it, but Burley took a liking to him.

"About 10 years of doing it, he kind of just thought he wasn't giving it the energy, it was becoming stale... he actually put it on TradeMe, that's where I came along.

"He seemed to like me enough to sell it to me, cause it was up for a long time and he had plenty of offers but only sold it to me which is quite nice."

Ward makes money from the page by selling business ads - it may not sound like much, but besides a few freelance gigs, it's where most of his income comes from.

"We approach, or we get approached, it's basically organic content either from our own page onto Vic Deals or we allow a business to post onto Vic Deals, and we charge them for it.

"There's next to no [overhead costs]... at the end of three and a half years, I learned that you need a Xero software subscription and an accountant, that's it.

A standard day monitoring the page looks like "a whole lot of doomscrolling" - but it also requires a knack for marketing, sales, and the ability to draw hard lines when things get out of hand.

"It can get wayward pretty quick... the red lines are always pretty gross stuff, fights that have happened or something that's gone horribly wrong on Courtenay Place late at night, stuff like that gets deleted soon as. Anything that mentions people personally is gone immediately.

"I won't lie, I was bricking it when I first took it over, but Police and Netsafe aren't out to get you, they're out to help you. It wasn't common, but it wasn't uncommon that they'd reach out and say, 'Hey, this has happened, we need action on it' and they make it very clear on what you can and can't control, what liability is yours."

Besides the occasional headache, Ward says the page has been a huge source of positivity - and a rare example of online posts turning into real community moments.

In June 2020, a homesick Korean exchange student posted on Vic Deals, saying she was missing her mum's kimchi and wondering if someone's mum could make her some. The response was a flurry of comments giving support, recommendations for homemade kimchi, and even a few invitations.

Ward recalls another instance involving a toddler and a disappointing birthday party.

"We had a little fella that was like three years old who was super stoked about his birthday party and didn't get a great showing up. His mum and dad took him to Scorching Bay Beach, put a post up on Vic Deals, and got like a hundred people there."

Now Ward is selling the page - not because he's over it, but because life has taken him elsewhere.

"I've moved to the South Island pursuing other things, it's a decision of the head, not the heart. I wish I could still be in Wellington, I wish we still had Vic Deals, but I'm not there and I can't get up there as much as I'd like to, so unfortunately for me, fortunately for someone else, I'm passing the torch on."

There's been plenty of interest in his TradeMe listing, but like the owner before him, Ward isn't selling to just anyone.

"I've already had interest from a fairly large media company which I've turned away, another guy in Wellington who I just didn't think was a suitable fit. There was another individual from Auckland.

"I really want someone who's in Wellington, who's known and liked ideally, and isn't really abrasive. It's about the individual really who's buying it, it's about the brand itself and someone who's got the intention to try and preserve that as best as possible."