California Town Fails To Sell On Ebay

AMBOY, Calif. (AP) - A 150-acre Mojave Desert town located on Route 66 failed to sell after a month-long auction.

Bidding on the auction site eBay ended April 4 after a month on the Internet auction site with no offers reaching the minimum reserve price. Amboy, with seven residents, has a listed value of $1.9 million, but the top bid reached only $995,900.

Amboy has a post office, motel, cafe, gas station, church, gift shop and two landing strips. A buyer also gets about 540 acres of surrounding land divided in five parcels. The town is owned by celebrity photographer Timothy White and his business partner, Walt Wilson.

"It was below the price that the sellers would be willing to accept," said Rob McManus, estate director for Dilbeck Realtors, which is selling the town for Christie's Great Estates.

The owners will have to resort to more traditional methods to sell the town - through a real estate broker.

"We had expectations that it would be very be successful, but the fact that we went to war in the middle of the marketing process had a tremendous effect on it, as one would expect," McManus said.

McManus said even though the eBay auction was unsuccessful, the town's appearance on the Web site prompted calls from interested buyers and he's optimistic the exposure will help in an eventual sale.

Amboy was founded in 1858 as a mining town. It is about a 3 1/2-hour drive from Los Angeles, about halfway between Barstow and Needles.