Thanks xStainDx...An 82-acre town in Northern California sold Friday on eBay for $1.78 million, a strong price considering the sellers called the place a "fixer-upper" and the first bidder had wanted to pay only $5,000 for it. The winning bid for Bridgeville, Calif., must still be verified by the sellers. But one of the sellers said late Friday that things "looked good" for the sale and that the winning bid came from a southern California man.
"I"m happy with the price. I"m not astounded by the price...it"s such a unique opportunity to own a town," said Ed Lapple, who along with his sister peddled the former logging town of Bridgeville on the popular Internet auction site. Lapple, who lives in Fillmore, Calif., is an independent television editor and director. He and his sister, Elizabeth Lapple, are no strangers to online auctions. They now earn much of their incomes selling items on eBay.
If the Bridgeville deal goes through, however, they will be the first to sell a whole town on the Internet. The Lapple family bought Bridgeville--a remote town located about 260 miles north of San Francisco--for $150,000 in 1972. A previous attempt to sell the town in 1977 backfired after the church group that bought it failed to keep up with the payments. Lapple family members have since left the town proper, which now boasts a population of 25. About 670 people live in and near the town, which has its own ZIP code, 95526.