Would you buy this house?

@ersmommy1 (12588)
United States
October 2, 2008 7:36am CST
A home is seen Sept. 17, 2008, in Saginaw, Mich. With a winning bid of just $1.75. Yep you read it right. Under $2. The woman who bought it has to pay $850 in back taxes and clean up costs. I guess the land is worth at least that much. But seeing as she lives in Chicago it may be quite the trip. http://news.yahoo.com/nphotos/House-sells-175/ss/events/lf/100108ebayhousesagin/s:/ap/20081001/ap_on_fe_st/odd_cheap_home;_ylt=AlrwGVSjIJdpze9unCh8kr0uQE4F#photoViewer=/081001/480/7a97c9a8a8c54f3a9cae6a6b2dd92c55
2 people like this
16 responses
@bcote212 (1112)
• United States
2 Oct 08
I read that on Yahoo, and I think that it is amazing. I know that the MI area has been hit hard with so many americans not buying new cars because of fuel prices. Still even thought the house is in terrible condition the land itself has to be worth something. Needless to say Ill be on ebay looking for $2 houses lol.
@marciascott (25529)
• United States
2 Oct 08
Wow I read it too! that is amazing! I want one! I want 10 if I could get it! LOL.
@abonnen (39)
• United States
14 Sep 16
Well I think it would be a great deal, we recently bought a house for 12,000. The area is a rural community so our property value isn't to high. Heck if I got a house for 2 dollar I would probably tear it down and move in a nice trailer house or build a house and use the property.
@stephcjh (38473)
• United States
2 Oct 08
I have seen quite a few discussions today about this. I wander if it was made of ice cream sticks or toothpicks LOL? It just sounds too good to be true.
@RockeyS (16)
• United States
3 Oct 08
Great deal!!! welcome to the money pit.... I think that the back taxes are the least of concerns???
@lynnbear (46)
• United States
2 Oct 08
If the woman has some help to fix it up and have lots of money to spend, I say go for it. My opinion, no thank you. The land she should keep but not the house.
• Australia
3 Oct 08
Man any house that cheap has some serious hidden flaws...
@mtdewgurl74 (18151)
• United States
2 Oct 08
Old House - This is a old house that sold in Michigan on ebay for $1.75
Wow, that was cheap, but it looks like she will have her hands full making remodeling and making renovations on the house and that will be costly. She made a good deal but I hope that the remodeling and fixing doesn't cause her any problems and that the house is sound with no termite problems. And that her purchase doesn't turn out to be more then she can afford to fix or handle.
@marciascott (25529)
• United States
2 Oct 08
That is so good I knew house were going cheap but never that cheap. It must be a catch to it. We have to read the fine print.
@annjilena (5618)
• United States
2 Oct 08
that sounds like a good deal as long as the house dont, need immediately repairs if it does it can be very costly i hope it work out well for her and she don,t have any costly repairs.
• United States
2 Oct 08
I don't think I would normally buy a house in such condition, but I can see that any house is clearly worth the back-taxes and $1.75. I hope she is able to fix it up and sell or rent it. In this market, buying homes is hard. Fixing homes is hard. Credit can be tough to come by. More to the point, loans can be harder to get. Thus, it might be harder than one expects to flip the house.
@katsmeow1213 (28719)
• United States
2 Oct 08
Oh yeah! Even with the $850 in back taxes, that's cheap property. Not sure of the condition of the house.. but she could always fix it up (or tear down and rebuild) and rent it out, and probably earn her money back (including the repair costs) within the first year. I would have done it!
@jonesy123 (3948)
• United States
2 Oct 08
If you look at the picture, you'll notice the house is completely run down. If this woman did a joke bid thinking that it won't take, well, now she is stuck. The $850 is probably minor to what the clean-up costs may be. She intents on selling it, but it was sold to her by some property management company. Nobody in that town is interesting in buying. It's one of those towns where people are leaving to find work elsewhere. She may be stuck with it for quite some time. And she'll still have to continue to pay tax on it. But who knows... it may be worth a lot one day, if the town starts booming again.
@icegermany (2524)
• India
2 Oct 08
yes its really surprising and i just opened yahoo and i saw this but i was not having time and i proceeded to my mail and just seeing your discussion it reminded me and i will just have a look at it after answering it to you. Its really quite surprising as new things happening daily and also exciting.
@ncrooke (64)
• Saint Vincent And The Grenadines
2 Oct 08
i was shocked when i saw it myself. the house itsef might not cost much but get a big boldozer and pust it away and then there you go a nice piece of land. well she paid $850.00 for the back tax so i am saying paid like almost $2-3000.00 to do everything. that was the trick when the person said they wanted $1.75 on the bid. they knew they had back taxes.
@gwoman2 (710)
• United States
2 Oct 08
Hi Ersmommy, wow, it looks like the house that sits right next to my $138,000 home. When I bought mine, the condemned house was going for $10,000 oh how I wish I could have afforded buying it, they since have renovated it and the slum landlord that bought it rented it to 12 men and 1 woman, yeah you read that right, 13 people in a two bedroom house (actually this idiot of a landlord went ahead and made 3 bedrooms out of two, I was told that you can't even put a twin bed in each of the rooms because they're so small)...it was a mess since I don't have my fence up yet the garbage was everywhere and me being me would clean up after them...anyway, now the house is "worth" over $100,000 just because of the value of mine! The city has since fined the owner and has made him turn it back into 2 bedrooms and the house has been empty since the city and immigration stepped in...now it's just sitting there and since the owner lives in N. Carolina nothing is being done. It's a shame, there are so many homeless people here in my little shoebox of a town that could benefit from so many condemned homes. To answer your question: I would not buy this house not even for 1 cent because it's going to take many thousands of dollars to repair it, if repair is all it needs...I think it should be knocked down and either make a play area for children or rebuild it completely! ~G~
• Egypt
2 Oct 08
i read that on yahoo and was shocked! why someone sells his home with only $2 ? he could do it into parts and then selling it may be worth more than $1000