Well the market is down and so sellers are desperate to come up with novel ways to try and sell their homes. This has to be the most interesting way I have seen so far.

These sellers are holding an essay contest, and will award the house to the winner.  It costs $200 to enter.  The contest requires 3,000 entries.  Do the math: that is $600,000.  So, you know the holders of the contest take some sort of cut for reading the entries and running the contest.  I wonder how much the owners would get out of the deal in the end?  Is it that much more than dropping their price by that amount?

I do believe that this was a house that was listed on the MLS for many months without a sale.  The owners obviously felt that they needed to try something a little bit more innovative in order to get some money out of the property.

So far they have gotten $38,600 from contest entry fees, which is well short of the required $600,000 to hold the contest.  They are refunding monies in the event that they don't get enough entries. 

I don't consider myself a pessimist at all: I am an optimistic realist, in fact.  However, I am doubtful that they are going to get 3,000 entries.  I wish them luck and hope it works out for them.  Any of you want to have a little home in Yachats, OR?