A home that was listed for $1 has been sold for $52,000 in Michigan.
Chris Hubel, a Metro Detroit real estate agent with Good Company Realty in Royal Oak, confirmed in an email to FOX Business that the two-bedroom house he listed online for a dollar has found a buyer.
“We did in fact accept a $52,000 cash offer this morning,” Hubel wrote on Wednesday, Aug. 23.
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Hubel listed the 724-square-foot ranch home in Pontiac, Michigan, on Tuesday, Aug. 15, through Realcomp, which is the state’s largest multiple listing service.
The dollar asking price garnered attention from homebuyers who saw the property on popular real estate websites.
“The listing had millions of views from different sources,” Hubel wrote. “I received over 4,500 calls from consumers directly from Zillow where the listing had nearly 250,000 views in just a week.”
“In total we ended up with approximately 142 offers ranging from .27 cents to the $52,000 offer that we accepted,” Hubel continued.
The two-bedroom, one-bathroom home, which is located within Michigan’s Dupont Heights neighborhood, will require repair, according to Hubel.
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“The home needs a full rehab which will cost between $25,000 to $45,000 depending on the finishes and how much work is hired out,” Hubel wrote. “After rehab the home should sell for $120,000 [or more].”
Photos Hubel provided FOX Business show the Pontiac home will need its kitchen and utility room redone.
The utility room will require a furnace replacement, a new hot water heater and floor repair, Hubel explained in a phone call Wednesday evening.
The home appears to be in need of modest repairs in the living room, bathroom and one of the bedrooms.
Why list a home for $1?
“This was kind of an experiment to show that when you underprice a home, the market is just going to tell you what the true market value is,” said Hubel.
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“If I was to list this home for a traditional listing price, I probably would have listed it around $40,000. It probably would have sold for a strong $45,000,” he continued.
“But, since we did it the way that we did, we increased exposure and all of a sudden this home is marketed to the entire world as opposed to just the local market, which obviously impacts the sales price and that’s a little more money.”
Overpriced homes, on the other hand, tend to sell below market value because sellers are going for a higher number in anticipation of being talked down, according to Hubel.
While some towns in Europe have made headlines for selling one-Euro homes to people in exchange for years-long house rehabilitation, Hubel’s tactic differs in that it’s happening in a competitive market where there’s a shortage of homes, he explained.
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“I wanted to do this for a few years now, and this kind of was the perfect scenario and perfect home to try it on,” said Hubel, who said he only recently learned about the one-Euro home trend after his listing went viral.
“I knew it would do well, but I didn’t expect it to reach a worldwide audience like it did,” he continued.
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In light of the success of Hubel has received with his $1 listing, he launched homesforadollar.com, a website where he plans to continue list dollar houses in hopes of finding the true value of residential properties like he did with the Pontiac listing.