The owner of a broken-down Detroit house willing to exchange the home for an iPhone 6 has received so much publicity that he's now working on closing a more lucrative deal for $900 cash.
"Ever since 8 a.m. this morning I've had non-stop calls all day," listing realtor Larry Else
told Fox affiliate WJBK on Wednesday. He credits the surge in interested buyers to an earlier report the station broadcast the night before.
"It's a real listing," Else
reported Tuesday when the owner made the new offer. "My client is overseas and he told me he would be willing to trade the property for an iPhone 6. It sounds to me like he wants the [iPhone 6 Plus] version, but I think he's willing to negotiate . . . He might be willing to take anything — maybe an Android."
Sean Washington, who lives around the corner from the abandoned house, saw the report and contacted Else with a cash offer he couldn't refuse: $900. That's more money than the price of a contract-free iPhone 6, so the home's owner, who resides in Austria, said yes.
That means that the home that sat vacant for four months at a listed price of $3,000 could now have a new owner in as little as two weeks pending the processing of the sales contracts.
To say the house is a fixer-upper might be an understatement, as the three bedroom, 1.5 bath brick colonial has suffered extensive smoke damage from a fire, and has virtually no windows that aren't broken.
As ABC affiliate WXYZ Detroit noted, the Laing Street residence is also surrounded by other abandoned houses, and the property's $6,500 in back taxes will be passed on to the new owner.
Luckily for Else, the publicity from the odd listing has also led to a potential new client — one who's willing to list their home for a car.
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