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The Honolulu Advertiser
Posted on: Saturday, June 14, 2008

Buy this Florida man's home, and get another one for free

By Scott Blake
Florida Today

Buy-one-get-one-free deals are usually the stuff of supermarket sales for laundry detergent, bags of potato chips, sports drinks and the like.

Such sales tactics have now crept into the world of real estate.

Merritt Island, Fla., resident Dale Schamp and his real estate agent, Barbara Becker, have been trying to sell Schamp's beachfront house in Cape Canaveral, Fla., since February.

Their latest offer: Buy the beach house and get a second, smaller house on Merritt Island for free. And they'll sweeten the deal further by throwing in a Florida cruise for two and a $500 watch.

"It's a new gimmick," Schamp said. "We'll see how it goes."

His asking price for the five-bedroom, 2,876-square-foot beachfront dwelling is $1.1 million. The Merritt Island house is worth about $150,000, said Becker, who works for Vincent Keenan Realty in Cape Canaveral.

"I think it's a first around here," Cindy Kelley, president of the Space Coast Association of Realtors, said about the buy-one-get-one-free home deal.

The Brevard County Property Appraiser's office lists the 2007 market value of his beach house in Cape Canaveral as $690,000.

He said he bought the house six or seven years ago for $650,000.

The Merritt Island house has a 2007 market value of $125,000, according to the property appraiser's office.