Can You Really Buy a Home for $1? Here’s What Those Listings Mean—and Where You Can Find Them

The current median list price for a home in the U.S. is $415,000—but, there are hundreds of houses on the market for just $1.

Sometimes, listing a home for $1 is simply an unconventional marketing tactic to help widen the buyer pool or spark a bidding war. It can also be a way to let the market determine the true value of a property.

“The $1 price is often a tool used to move difficult properties efficiently in markets where traditional listings don’t always work,” says Hannah Jones, senior economic research analyst at Realtor.com®.

Cara Ameer, a real estate agent with Coldwell Banker who is licensed in Florida and California, agrees, saying, “It’s purely a gimmick designed for the property to go viral and garner a lot of attention and interest quickly.”

A home that is listed for $1 will get multiple offers over list price and will eventually be sold at the market value, adds Kati Spaniak, a real estate agent with eXp Realty in Northbrook, IL.

“While this might be a ‘scam’ in some people’s eyes, when a home is correctly marketed to the open market, you can’t truly underprice it—buyers will always set the price.”

Other times, $1 listings could signal a foreclosure or the starting bids in auctions.

Caitlin Wardlow of Wardlow Auctions recently listed a Louisville property for $1.

“It definitely gets people to look,” she tells Realtor.com. “We get a lot of calls and emails asking about it for sure, with a lot of inquiries like, ‘How can you sell something for $1? What is wrong with it?'”

But, a $1 home can also come with sky-high strings attached.

“I’ve listed homes for that cheap because we wanted someone to buy out the seller of their country club membership obligations,” Palm Beach real estate broker Jeff Lichtenstein, CEO of Echo Fine Properties, tells Realtor.com. “It was very typical in the ‘Big Short’ market where membership cost of carry was so high and the home could only be sold if someone also bought the membership.”

You could also be on the hook for back property taxes, code violations, and other liens that the previous owners didn’t pay off, so you should always do your due diligence before submitting an offer.

Real estate expert Sain Rhodes at Clever Offers says, “I spent $2,500 on due diligence for a $1 property and uncovered $67,000 in unremedied code violations. You are not just buying a home; you are purchasing a debt obligation. That knowledge meant I didn’t buy it, so that $2,500 saved me from a $100,000 mistake.”