‘Bring your dumpster’: Listing for $25K home takes brutally honest approach
The home, in Keokuk, Iowa, is still seeking the right buyer — aka, someone who can see past its flaws and doesn’t expect too much. (Laura Bailey)
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KEOKUK, Iowa (NEXSTAR) — Well, at least she’s honest.
A real estate agent in Iowa is marketing her new listing with a creative and unflinching description, highlighting the home’s missing windows, lead-based paint and “haunted”-looking exterior.
“If you like the outdoors, you will love the missing windows, allowing a cool breeze to flow through the home, saving on energy bills,” Laura Bailey wrote in the listing for the Keokuk home, currently priced at $25,000.
In another passage, Bailey draws attention to the “creepy feel” of the creaky floorboards, broken siding and weeds growing inside the house, suggesting that fans of “horror flicks” would feel right at home.
“Save time scraping off the lead-based paint, being half of it is missing!” she adds.
Bailey, who works with Keller Williams Ankeny Metro, confirmed to Nexstar that the house’s owner gave full permission to market the property however she saw fit. Even still, Bailey said she hadn’t considered brutal honesty until she began discussing the listing with her daughters.
“We joke around in our family a lot, we’re sarcastic,” said Bailey, who explained that she wrote up the description based on their conversation. “I hit send and away it went, and … I had no idea it was going to go this far.”
Over the last few weeks, plenty of folks have found amusement in Bailey’s description of the leaky pipes, lack of appliances and abandoned belongings strewn across the floor. The tactic may be working, too: She has since noticed quite a bit of interest in the property, leading to at least one “very creative” offer.
“One person offered me their grandfather’s prized wrench (for the house),” she said.
Bailey said the home is still seeking the right buyer, but she’s hopeful that it won’t be long — especially if this buyer doesn’t expect too much, and can see past the home’s current flaws.
“If you think someone else’s trash is another person’s treasure, then bring your dumpster, they left all of their trash behind for you,” Bailey wrote in the description. “Please make viewing appts during the day as the owner lived in the home with no utilities hooked up!”
