How often do you get freebies for selling something, especially your house?
In what has been dubbed an "internet miracle", the Austrian man who caught headlines for wanting to swap his Detroit home for an iPhone 6 has finally managed to sell his house for a little under $1,000 and got an iPhone free.
Andreas Gindelhuber purchased the residence in a foreclosure sale for $41,000 in hopes of operating the property as a rental unit. But as the Detroit market continued to worsen and people left their homes abandoning the city, it became hard for Gindelhuber to find tenants.
Gindelhuber 's last tenant left seven months ago and at that time, he owed $6,000 in property tax bills on the home.
Therefore, he decided to sell the house and hired local real estate agent Larry Else to market the property, pricing it for only $3,000. For months, they found no takers.
But one fine day, the idea of swapping the home for an iPhone 6 or an iPad struck Gindelhuber and he pitched it to his agent, who thought that it could help spread the word faster.
"*INVESTOR SPECIAL* 3 Bedroom, 1.1 Bath Brick colonial with finished basement and 2 car detached garage. QCD ONLY! Furnace and HWT will be provided if closed before September 29th. Seller will swap the house for a new iPhone 6 or a new iPad - 32gb," the listing read.
After Fox News spotted the listing on Zillow and featured the news, the story became an overnight international sensation.
"My client is overseas and he told me he would be willing to trade the properly for an iPhone 6," real estate agent Larry Else told My Fox Detroit.
Else also told the channel that Gindelhuber was ready to negotiate and within two days, the home sold for a little under $1000, Zillow reported.
Else told Zillow that the buyer lived just down the street and apparently loved the house. He thinks it would make a beautiful house once renovated. The residence is a 2,400-square-foot single-family house.
While the buyer only paid the money for the house, Gindelhuber didn't get the iPhone in this deal. But a German man who saw the story in a magazine decided to "donate" his iPhone 6 to Gindelhuber.
Reason? This was a touching story.
"I'm not interested in this villa, but I wanted to donate my iPhone 6 to the seller of this house. It's brand new. The advertisement touched me somehow," the man wrote in an email to Zillow.
