Sold: Small Town, Needs Work

A small town in Northern California has been sold for nearly $1.8m (£1.1m) on the internet auction site eBay.

If the deal goes through as expected, 82 acres of Bridgeville will go to an unidentified buyer who put in a bid for $1,777,877 just seconds before the internet auction closed on Friday.

Joe Lapple, who owns Bridgeville along with his wife Elizabeth, said he hopes the new owner will renovate the town, which dates back to the 19th century.

Bridgeville is the first town to be sold on the website, said eBay spokesman Kevin Pursglove. Almost 250 bids were cast during the town's month on the electronic auction block.

"I would say that's above average. That's a pretty heavy level of bidding activity," he said.

The town, which Elizabeth Lapple acknowledged needs renovating, comes complete with a post office, a mile and a half of river bank, a cemetery and more than a dozen cabins and houses. "Your own zip code will now be 95526," the eBay description reads.

Bidding started at $5,000 on November 27 and went well beyond the asking price of $775,000.

Bridgeville is located 260 miles north of San Francisco in rural Humboldt County. The Lapples have owned the town since 1985.

After conventional means of selling proved unsuccessful, the couple decided to try their luck on eBay. They say they put the town up for auction because they couldn't afford the estimated cost of renovating it - about $200,000.

The Lapples are moving to a new home in Fortuna, about 25 miles away.

"We were just waiting to sell this town and pack up all our stuff and be gone," said Joe Lapple.

The highest bid was more than he expected.

"A million and a half, I figured that was the right price," he said.

But final bids for real estate posted on eBay are not binding.

"It's up to the seller and the high bidder to negotiate how they are going to consummate the deal" after bidding ends, Mr Pursglove said. "They'll close the deal offline."

Denise Stuart, the estate agent who placed the listing, said she has received calls from people around the world since bidding closed. Some have offered to buy the property for $2m.

But the Lapples will stick with the eBay bidder, who comes from outside the area who wanted to let the purchase "sink in" before coming forward publicly, Ms Stuart said. She expects the deal to be completed within 60 days.

Although there has been interest in the property over the years, no one ever met the asking price - much less offered more than twice that price - until it was posted on eBay.