The Hone Tuwhare Charitable Trust was established in July but, despite heavyweight support from the late governor-general Sir Paul Reeves and New Zealand poets and artists - which included a fundraising benefit concert - it failed to bring the project to fruition.
"We have held off putting the crib on the market for as long as we could, because were hoping to carry through our plans," Tuwhare's son, Rob Tuwhare, said from Auckland yesterday.
"It is sad. It's been a hard year, with the tough economic situation, the Christchurch [earthquakes] situation and the Rugby World Cup, this year."
Mr Tuwhare told the Otago Daily Times when the trust was established in July that about $170,000 was needed to buy and renovate the South Otago crib.
"The value has probably dropped a bit since then," Mr Tuwhare said yesterday.
"We're still hoping publicity of the sale might encourage a few people to get their heads together and help us find a way ahead."
A similar 60sq m one-bedroomed crib in Rata St, Kaka Point, with a $105,000 rateable value, was on the market for offers in excess of $129,000 yesterday.
"We want to keep it how Dad had it ... and give other New Zealanders the opportunity to create work in the same environment that inspired Dad," Mr Tuwhare said.
"I just think Dad would love it if people were going down there to write and be inspired by what he was.
"It's a bit of a gem. It's a very special corner of the world."
A "Koha for the Crib" benefit concert, which included Dunedin musicians Martin Phillipps and David Kilgour, was held in Auckland in July.
The trust also appealed to the Dunedin City Council at the 2011-12 annual plan hearings for funding to help establish the writer's residency.
Tuwhare lived the last 16 years of his life in the weatherboard, one-bedroomed seaside crib, after moving to Kaka Point in 1992.
The 1969 and 1974 University of Otago Robert Burns Fellow and 1999 New Zealand Te Mata Poet Laureate died in Dunedin, aged 85, in January, 2008.
"Hone's family and Kaka Point locals have been enormously patient, while the trust has worked to raise the funds needed to purchase the property," Hone Tuwhare Charitable Trust chairman Matt Shirtcliffe told the Otago Daily Times yesterday.
"[But] financial pressures mean the family simply can't delay the sale any longer, which the trust completely understands.
"While it's disappointing we can't yet purchase the property, we remain hopeful this may be the catalyst for an individual or organisation to step forward and help purchase the crib on behalf of the trust," Mr Shirtcliffe said.
"Alternatively, another scenario is that a buyer may be prepared to on-sell the crib to the trust in the next year or two, once we've reached our funding goal."
