Kerry Hann, a financial representative for an insurance company, holds a more positive view of eBay. The listing for her $645,000 golf course home in the Sarasota County town of North Port has drawn serious interest from a prospective buyer moving to the area from California.
"The exposure you get on eBay is priceless,'' Hann says.
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With some 84-million active users worldwide, the online auction site eBay has long been a favored venue for buying and selling easily shippable items like iPods, Nikes and Beanie Babies. But the comatose real estate market in many parts of the United States has also made it an option for those trying to unload houses and other real property.
As of Sunday, eBay's real estate category had 4,029 listings, a tiny but growing number of the site's 17-million listings. Among the properties offered for sale were 348 in Florida, including:
• A five-bedroom canal-front home in the MiraBay development of southern Hillsborough County. Bought for $695,000 in 2005 at the peak of the boom, it was foreclosed by the lender and is now listed for $399,999.
• A two-story, lakefront home in the Lee County town of Estero for $265,000. The owners, who paid $346,800 for the house in 2005, need to sell because they have another place in foreclosure proceedings.
• A 10-acre horse farm and boarding stable in the heart of urbanized Pinellas County with house, pond, riding arena and barns. Starting bid: $3-million.
Holly Rice, whose family owns the farm outright, says she based the price on what developers offered before the market collapsed.
"This is a very unique piece, and eBay seems to do a lot of specialty stuff,'' she says. "It covers the whole country, and for the kind of money you spend, more people go on eBay than ever open a magazine.''