Home For Sale: Fully Furnished; Concubine Included

It is said that home is where the heart is, but usually home and heart don’t sell as a package deal. However, desperate times call for desperate measures, and one Ms. Deven Trabosh—who apparently lost her dignity with her equity—is selling her house and her hand in marriage as a package deal. It’s like Indecent Proposal meets the Amityville Horror.

Because the story is so sensational, Trabosh has been getting plenty of coverage on the offbeat news waves, and I hesitate to give her any added attention. I’d rather write about the economic impact of recession on the sex trade and plastic surgery industries, but Ms. Trabosh represents both subjects nicely, as seen in this Boston Globe article. Most coverage of this debacle has made it out to be a human interest story, portraying this woman—in her own words—as “a Princess Lost in America” with a fetish for European men, but it is far more compelling to view it in terms of a different kind of interest: the return on investment for any sap who decides to play house with Ms. Trabosh, or—as I like to call her—the Trabesty.

Florida’s real estate market has been one of the hardest hit in the country, and now may be the best time to buy property as a long-term investment. With so many foreclosures available, is it really a good investment to buy a luxury home at more than the full asking price? The Trabesty listed the home at $340,000 on a traditional real estate site, which is already somewhat steep for such a saturated market, but then she upped it to half a million in the house/harpy package deal. Apparently, she thinks she’s worth roughly $160,000 dollars. How...generous.

We can only assume that most interested buyers will be interested mostly in the Trabesty’s tangible assets, which were described in the article as “Barbie-esque” though they are more appropriately labeled “Barbie-qued”. Over time, these assets can be expected to depreciate significantly, require high-maintenance and all without any hope for resale. It is true: Like all “alternative investments,” buying Ms. Trabosh’s claw in marriage may offer benefits that can’t be put in monetary terms. But so can investing your money in deserving, investor-driven charities instead of buying a shot with an opportunist who may just divorce you and take “her” half of the house in a matter of months.

Any lonely fellow who contacts the Trabesty—and they do—is advised to conduct full and proper due diligence. I recommend seeing if she can be leased before committing to buy, and I certainly recommend a pre-nup to go with this aging pin-up. Trabosh says she is offering a fairy tale come true. I’ll certainly agree that the story is "grim", but will she find Dunce Charming? If you believe in fairy tales, her character is more likely to end up in the oven than at the altar.