A mysterious real estate listing in the Sault has surfaced over the past couple of weeks, advertising a home in the city’s downtown core — without a civic address — for just $1.
Billed as the “perfect setup” for potential investors, the two-storey home is listed as a converted duplex, featuring a two-bedroom dwelling with a bachelor apartment in the back, in addition to a whopping 10 parking spaces.
But as the saying goes, if something sounds too good to be true, it usually is.
Joshua Persaud, a salesperson for HomeLife Hearts Realty Inc. in Mississauga Ont., says the downtown property isn’t actually being sold for a buck.
“I did this before in another small town, and it literally was the talk of the town,” Persaud told SooToday when reached by phone Wednesday.
In reality, the vague real estate listing has been deployed as more of a sales tactic in a housing market where there’s “not much movement,” despite a drop in interest rates.
“You’ve got to be a little bit more creative trying to get some interest — to see where people lie, and what they’re willing to do,” Persaud said.
The fact that the property wasn’t even listed on the website of the Sault Ste. Marie Real Estate Board was also part of that sales strategy.
“I only listed here in the Toronto board because it’s a bigger pool of fish, and it’s a bigger base of money,” he said.
“I didn’t list it on the board in the Sault, because it’s not good for business — and it costs me an extra ton of advertising dollars, when I can just spend it on social media ads.”
Although the $1 listing is advertised as being located in the area of Gore Street and Wellington Street, SooToday found the property in roughly five minutes by running a search on Google Maps.
The civic address of the dwelling is 64 Albert St. E., which is near Abbott Street in the city’s downtown core.
According to provincial land registry records retrieved by SooToday, the property was purchased for $89,000 this past May by 1000840252 Ontario Inc. Corporation records available to the public reveal the numbered company is headquartered in Mississauga, Ont., and lists Sajjad Siddiqui and Muneeb Alvi as co-directors.
Persaud says he’s managed to sell “quite a few” properties in the Sault to investors in the Greater Toronto Area in recent memory.
“Investors like the area because you get a good bang for your buck, and that’s basically it,” he said.
But Persaud feels Toronto-based real estate agents “get a lot of hate” from agents in smaller towns throughout the province, including the north. He’s had his real estate signs ripped down, while others were vandalized with moustaches drawn on signs with his face on them.
“I’ve had realtors want to shoot me — and you can put that on record,” he said.
It’s not the first time a property has been listed for just a buck in Ontario. As previously reported by sister site TorontoToday, a home near College Street and Ossington Avenue was listed for auction — starting at $1 — after repeated attempts to sell the four-bedroom, three-bathroom home in Toronto’s Little Italy neighbourhood were unsuccessful.