Auction on Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch Brings No Bids

One of the most famous foreclosed properties in California—Michael Jackson’s Neverland Ranch—went up for auction on a Chinese Web site and nobody wanted it.
Realtor.com reports that Taobao Pamei, the Chinese version of eBay, hosted a one-day auction for the property on Tuesday. The 2,700-acre property, now marketed as Sycamore Valley Ranch, includes a12,000-square-foot, six-bedroom main house and two guesthouses, along with a controversial history attached to Jackson’s seemingly surreal disconnection to the basic tenets of mature responsibility.
The auction’s opening bid was $78.6 million, but it only one bidder signed up for the event—and that person failed to acknowledge the sales effort. This marked the second time this year that Neverland was put up for sale—Sotheby’s International Real Estate listed the property in May for $100 million, but no one placed a bid.
Jackson purchased in the property in 1987 for $19.5 million, but defaulted on his mortgage in 2008. The real estate investment firm Colony Capital acquired it for $23 million, but to date, it has been stuck with the unwanted offering.