Unreal Estate: Home Seller Throws In $1,000 Worth of Booze

Looking for a way to sweeten the deal in order to sell your home? Well, don't. Try something with a little more kick to create buzz -- literally. That's what Melanie Gravdal, a homeowner in Glenview, Ill., is doing by offering a $1,000 bar tab to the buyer of her home, The Associated Press reports. Gravdal is offering the booze as a way to emphasize her $450,000 townhouse's close proximity to nightlife. And so far, she says, it's working.

While there are some very effective ways to spark interest in homes, there are also, of course, very effective ways to send someone fleeing from them. Such was the case with Nicolas Cage, who recently acknowledged that the reason he sold his Newport Harbor mansion was because a disturbed naked man broke into his house and confronted him wearing only one of Cage's leather jackets. According to the Orange County Register, the house, which Cage sold in 2008 for $35 million, is back on the market for $28.5 million.

In another possible case of egregious harassment, one Brooklyn woman is alleging that she and her daughter are being evicted from their apartment because she turned down her landlord's sexual advances, The Real Deal reports. The harassment started immediately when she moved in, she claims, and included the super requesting sex in exchange for a break on the rent. Now it's payback time: the woman is suing the landlord for $15 million.

Whether or not she wins the suit, she'll likely seek shelter from the storm elsewhere. In that she's not alone: According to CNN, storm shelter sales are through the roof, owing to the unusually high number of tornadoes this year. The severe weather has traumatized so many in the Midwest -- an estimated 550 people this year have been killed, which is 10 times the average annual rate -- that the "laissez-faire attitude" of prior storm seasons has given way to a strong desire among Midwesterners to be prepared for the next twister headed their way.

Also see:
Foreclosure Victims Plan Protests Across U.S.
Viewpoint: What's Behind Banks' Big Foreclosure Push?
101-Year-Old Foreclosure Victim to Get Home Back
Million-Dollar Foreclosures, Just Bring Your Checkbook


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