Ohio farm available for $100 and essay

COLEBROOK TOWNSHIP, Ohio — One hundred dollars and a good story: That's all Rose and Dennis Wallace want in exchange for their 43 ½-acre farm.

The Wallaces intend to hand over the deed to the winner of an essay contest they are sponsoring. Put the right words together explaining why you would want it, and the Ashtabula County homestead is yours with no strings attached.

The contest, which law-enforcement officials said is perfectly legal, started seven weeks ago. It will end when the 3,000th submission with a $100 entry fee lands in P.O. Box 186 in Orwell.

The Wallaces would raise $300,000 through the contest, a payoff far greater than what the property could fetch in today's sagging market. The Ashtabula County auditor's office values the property at just over $170,000, according to online records. A local real-estate agent estimated its value at $250,000.

Rose Wallace said the contest money would be enough to pay off their mortgage and provide a down payment on their next home.

"People are leery when they hear about it," Rose Wallace said of the contest. "But this is for real."

Her husband nodded in agreement. "Somebody," he said, "is going to get this farm for $100."

The sales approach may seem a little unorthodox. But the more the couple talked, the more sense the contest made. The Wallaces worried that they would struggle to sell the farm in the traditional manner, given the area's slow-moving real-estate market. A house up the street from them has sat vacant for two years.

So they printed up hundreds of fliers promoting their "Win a Farm Essay Contest" and started tacking them up on public bulletin boards around the region. What's included with the farm? There's a 2,000-square-foot, red-roofed ranch home with three bedrooms and two baths. There's also a six-stall barn, two pole barns, a stocked pond, fenced pastures and a small apple orchard.

For more details and photos, go to Winafarm.bravehost.com.

The posted announcement brought immediate attention — from the Ashtabula County Sheriff's Office. A deputy visited the Wallaces after several people phoned in wondering if the contest was a scam. Afterward, the deputy wrote a memo concluding the offer was legit.

A spokeswoman for the Ohio Attorney General's Office said the contest appeared legal.

The method's still a long shot, though, said Mark Samwick of Allentown, Pa., who runs Essaycontests.com.

He estimates that only about 5 percent of the win-a-home essay contests launched by private citizens end with the keys being passed. Most of the offers simply die out from a lack of interest, he said.

So far, more than 250 people dreaming of a life among Colebrook's cornfields have submitted essays. One came all the way from Japan. All entries go to a third-party judge — the Wallaces identified her as a business-school graduate but did not release her name — who will ultimately pick the winner.