Real Estate Industry News

Do you want to buy a house with a jail attached? Or view a home with a highly unusual ceiling? Or maybe you can appreciate the legendary Bigfoot making an appearance in your potential abode?

Social media has been responsible for making real estate listings go viral. The latest is a two-bedroom, 1 1/2-bathroom home in Fayette, Missouri, that looks like the usual mid-aughts renovation, until you get to the 30th listing photo, which begins to show a passageway from the center-island kitchen to… a jail?

The home, which recently came on the market for $350,000, was built in 1875 and was used as the Howard County Sheriff’s house, according to the father-and-son listing agents, Jeff and Justin Radel of House of Brokers Realty.

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Howard County sold the home on the auction site eBay EBAY in 2005, and the new owner extensively renovated it, though kept the nine jail cells, with operational cell door lock throws, the agents say.

The listing was shared on the Lab Coat Agents Facebook group, Justin Radel said, and then made the rounds by being shared further on Facebook and Twitter.

“It was kind of crazy to see my listing there,” he said.

The listing had a similar viral fate as one in Felton, California, in which the agent, Daniel Oster, took photos of himself in a Sasquatch costume doing various tasks around the five-bedroom home to market the $999,000 listing, which is located near the Bigfoot Discovery Museum. It sold for $1.1 million in July, thanks to its viral fate.

Also in Fayette, Missouri, this $259,900 listing has been making the rounds on social media for its unusual decor.

Justin Radel says that beyond his listing’s viral fame, potential buyers have floated the idea that the historic former jail could make an excellent themed Airbnb.