Staff writer
Carla and Jason Hamm are offering a two-bedroom home near their property free to any takers.
The catch: The new owner must be willing to move the nearly 900-square-foot house to a new site.
“What I tell everyone is, first-come-first-served,” said Carla Hamm. “If they have a foundation they can put it on, it’s theirs.”
Hamm admits the house with faded paint and broken windows is “kind of an eyesore.” But the “bones” of the structure are in decent shape, even if the foundation is “kind of crumbling,” she said.
“It needs a new roof, the bathroom needs to be gutted and the floors need tended to,” Hamm said, adding that a few people have showed up for a look, but there have been no takers.
The Hamms bought the former rental house for the lot it sits on after the man who lived there died. The couple has no desire to remodel it.
“It’s a bigger project than we would like to take on,” she said. “I would hate to have it torn down, but we don’t want to lift it up and put another foundation under it.”
So they are offering the house free to anyone willing to hire movers and take it off their hands. Hamm said she hopes charging nothing for the house might offset the cost of the move.
“To move it is going to be a small chunk of change,” she said. “Probably thousands of dollars.”
And there is the challenge presented by the remodel.
“That’s why we said it needs to go to someone who really enjoys home improvement projects,” she said.