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?
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