Seneca: How to Buy Your Ghost-Town & Bar

You are currently viewing Seneca: How to Buy Your Ghost-Town & Bar

[UPDATE 12/17: Seneca is being repaired. Local volunteers are fixing it up with donated materials and help from the new owner. Hooray! It was close to falling down after nothing happened in first years after being sold.)

[UPDATE 7/11/14: SOLD. Well, sold for awhile now. We have had a buyer for Seneca for a few months. We are presently sorting through final paperwork.)

[UPDATE 2/18/14: Best offer stands at $240k. Wrapping up any day now. Last call!)

So, do you want to buy a bar and a ghost-town on a beautiful river in the mountains of Gold Country in the California Sierras? …Your own getaway (and bistro?) that’s both totally remote and also just a half-hour-to-hour away from several modern mountain towns.

If you do, here’s how… First, read the several posts here at OYB that detail the many fascinating aspects of Seneca.

Here are links to them:

outyourbackdoor.com/newarticle.php?id=2077

outyourbackdoor.com/newarticle.php?id=2092

outyourbackdoor.com/newarticle.php?id=2099

Here’s a link to a Craigslist ad that has a lot of info as well: goldcountry.craigslist.org/reo/4311274924.html (NOTE: Ad is temporarily on hold. Revised ad will be posted shortly and link updated.)

And if you google around a bit there are hundreds of recent news reports on Seneca plus there are some videos on YouTube. (It’s one of the most famous real estate sales this season. There’s even a chance for a reality TV show, if you want that. Just let us know.)

So, here’s how we’re selling Seneca: Because we’ve had dozens of people say they’d like to buy it, we’re using a simple in-house auction to find the new owner. How it works is that you “ante in” with a deposit to a trust-account and make your offer. That’s all you have to do. (All info is in the “Offer Contract” at link below. The how-to info is after the Contract portion.)

We’ll then let everyone know what the high offer is. (Here, at the top of this article, at the SenecaGinMill.net website, and at the Seneca Facebook page.) You can change your offer as you like. At the deadline of Feb. 15, or when it’s apparent that everyone is set with their offer, we’ll pick the new owner, who then gets to finish making payment and gets a free and clear title with insurance, etc. (We do have info on a lender who can finance up to 50%. Just ask.) Everyone else gets their deposit returned. We’d be happy to close a deal on the right offer at any time. So it’s less of a strict auction than just a simple, secure way to let anyone to make one or more offers as they like.

If you’d like to visit Seneca we can set up a visit for you with our local host, weather depending. (You can see it at any time, but our host can let you into the bar and show you around in detail.)

If you want to make an offer, or just want more info, email me at: jeff@outyourbackdoor.com. Or call one of our 2 co-owners, Jan Goodman, at (310) 729-2394.

Here’s a link to a blog we set up that contains all the info files and PDFs that you’d need: senecaginmill.blogspot.com.

Or, here are direct links to the PDF files. (Some of them are scans that got tilted a bit but they’ll work)

Offer Contract

Misc Info

Preliminary Title Report

Technical Map

Satellite Photo with Boundaries

Tax Receipt

Liquor License Receipt

Liquor and Tobacco License Info

(Just in case, here’s a link to an expired CL ad that was used in hundreds of media reports. I dunno, it’s probably silly to include it, but it might help if someone clicks on an old link and comes up empty and then googles for it. goldcountry.craigslist.org/reo/4042282693.html.)



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