A slumping housing market means you need to come up with creative marketing ideas to sell homes and I think this idea by a Michigan couple trying to sell their home for retirement is ingenious. They’ve put up a replica of their home for sale in the form of a dollhouse for $169,000 and as a bonus you get the real house for free.

The homeowners, Gerry and Cindy Mann, found this dollhouse in their basement. Cindy’s late father created the dollhouse for their kids years ago, but the kids have grown up so they thought to use it for marketing. It took Cindy’s father over a year to create this scale model so I can see how they were inspired to put it to use.

In any case, it’s quite a clever idea. We’ll have to wait and see if it gets their home sold. At the very least, it ought to bring lots of attention.