Truth is stranger than fiction, kids. I stumbled across two odd news items recently related to the foreclosure wave, one of which was happening in my backyard and that former hotbed of real estate speculation, South Florida. Couldn’t resist sharing them both with you guys:1. New business opp: spray-painting dead lawns green. That’s right: for $550, you can spray-paint a beat-up lawn into verdant-looking health, a supposedly environmentally harmless effect that lasts 6 months. The city of Perris, CA, in southern Cali has set aside $2 million for lawn-spraying alone.
Luckily for us in South Florida, the rain and humidity mostly takes care of the grass – we’d probably be more in the market for good old-fashioned tree-trimming and lawn-mowing services.
2. Get a waterfront Florida property for a $10 raffle ticket. Last month a Ft. Lauderdale couple decided to sell raffle tickets at $10 each and draw a winner after 300,000 tickets are sold. Sound crazy? They sold 5,000 tickets the first day it was announced, so a $50,000 start towards their goal ain’t too shabby. Of course, they bought the property for $2.35 million, so they do have a long way to go – but hey, I’d buy a raffle ticket just to reward their creative strategy!
What about you – have you heard any interesting tales of people using their ingenuity to combat the housing crisis?
[image: Sign of the Times – Foreclosure by respres on flickr]
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