A South Bay man accepted hundreds of offers from open houses. But the homes weren’t for sale.
“The owner of the house decided to sell, so they got rid of the house because there was no one to buy it,” he said.
The result: No houses.
And many people in the Bay Area were left wondering how on earth this man came to be selling for $1,000 an hour on the internet and making money from the transaction.
A Bay Area man was able to sell about 500 of his houses for $1,000 each via the internet after his open house was listed on Craigslist, a San Francisco online newspaper has learned.
An acquaintance discovered the man on the site and hired a contractor to do repairs to an elderly home in San Carlos that was listed. After listing the house, the owner sent out a mass email to her network of contacts, pitching the home and asking them to come by.
A few hundred showed, but a few hundred more emails came in asking that the house be considered in the fall. She waited for the fall season to pass, then she saw the listing again.
Her first thought was, “Oh, yeah, the house that was on Craigslist.”
She called the owner of the house, who told her, “Yes, I found the place on Craigslist, and I’m planning to sell it.” He showed her the listing again, and invited her and her husband to view the house.
The two went next door. The family saw the listing. They liked it. They were intrigued. They decided to call the owner and asked for an open house.
It was during this conversation that an acquaintance named Peter came by and showed up at the house with a contractor and a camera. After showing the house, Peter said he would do a walk-through on the weekend. He paid a $250 deposit and went to work.
On Friday, the owner walked through the house again with Peter, and she made another offer and another deposit.
The owners met with the contractor the next day and took the house.
And then the home listing started.
“We just couldn’t believe that he actually went and built houses,” said the acquaintance who first discovered the