Man Gets Creative to Pay Florida Mortgage

You’ve gotta do what you’ve gotta do to make the Florida mortgage payments, even if that means thinking outside the box.

In the case of Karol Gajda, who lives right outside Orlando, he’s taking that mentality to new heights. Rather than trying to keep his home up for sale in this sliding Florida housing market, he is offering one person or company an advertisment on his garage door for a year.

In the coming months, Gajda will be moving from Central Florida back to his home state of Michigan. But with over 40 homes in his community for sale, and virtually none of them selling, he decided on a different way to pay his Florida home mortgage while he makes the move.

Lessening demand has yet to quell home price growth enough to bring priced-out buyers back into the market. As a result, the number of homes for sale is rising across the Sunshine State, and with that much inventory, properties languish for months on end.

Unwilling to try his luck against those odds, Karol is auctioning off an advertisement on his two-car garage door for a full year. The auction is running online through October 5, 2006. When asked how he thought of this idea, the creative homeowner said:

“I’d been writing down all the ideas I could think of with regards to selling my home. Nothing was jumping out at me as the way to go about it. Then, while eating dinner one night, I was thinking about outside advertising and wondering how I could integrate it into the sale of my house. The garage door ad just came to me. I [went online] and listed it right away.”

While it could end up being rather unsightly, you have to give Gajda credit for ingenuity. Plus, it’s not like he’s going to be living there!