A two-bedroom house in Georgia owned by the Butler County is being listed for just $1 after failing to sell for over four years, according to multiple reports.
The home located at 235 Dooley St. was originally listed on the market for $8,000 in 2015, and remained unsold until 2019, almost four years after its original listing, according to Fox News. After discussing the price with the commissioners, the house was listed on Oct. 7 for the low asking price of $1, Butler County Journal News reported.
“I just have a wild idea, what if we put a quarter-page ad in the newspaper and it just said something like property for sale, $1. Do you have any ideas on how to get rid of that property, since it’s not selling at auction?” said commissioner Cindy Carpenter, according to the Journal News.
The county was hoping that with the low asking price, it would finally be able to sell the property, the New York Post reported.
Butler County acquired the property when a woman in Georgia moved to Ohio to be with her daughters, but within three years she was admitted into a care facility that was run by the county. However, because she still owned the property in Hawkinsville, Georgia, she was denied Medicare, according to the New York Post.
The Butler County Journal News reported that after her medical bills reached around $50,000, Chuck Demidovich, then-care facility director, ended up buying the property for $18,000 back in 2004. This allowed the woman to be able to qualify for Medicare, since she no longer owned the property. The news outlet reported that Medicare ended up paying for around $40,000 of the medical bills. Demidovich retired in 2018.
According to Ohio law, when people enter care facilities run by the county, the nursing home itself is supposed to take possession of the home that the person owned.
Demidovich commented that it was a strange thing for him, saying: “The thing is the law says I’m supposed to collect these people’s property. I really don’t want to do that, and this is an exact example why. If I get somebody’s house that nobody wants, I might as well become a land bank.”
After Demidovich acquired the property for $18,000, he couldn’t find someone to buy the home from him, and throughout his possession of the property, he paid $200 tax annually.
Over the years the county tried to sell the property to Hawkinsville, but city officials ended up rejecting the offers as they didn’t want to property, according to the New York Post. It was also put up for auction in 2015 for $8,000, but after advertising it twice the bids only came to $1,000. Even then, the sale didn’t end up going through, and the county was still left with the dilapidated home.
Finally in 2019 the commissioners decided, after much discussion, to put the property up for $1, hoping that it would be able to attract a buyer.
“If we advertise for a dollar,” Carpenter told Butler County Journal News, “this could change the dynamic.”
