Disney’s ‘Up’ fails to attract Bidders at Auction

This home in Seattle was also tied to Disney’s ‘Up’ movie.

Edith Macefield’s century old house was featured in a marketing stunt to publicize Walt Disney Co’s balloon adventure movie “Up” but even then this house could not make any gains its auction. The reason that the house failed to attract any bids at the auction on Friday is that the house is wedged in the middle of a modern mall.

Edith Macefield and her house had gained national media attention is 2006 when she had refused a $1 million offer for her house. The property is based on 1000 square feet. The $1 million offer was made by an investment company that had wanted to build a mall. However as Edith Macefield did not sell her house the investment company finally developed the mall around the house.

Edith Macefield passed away in 2008 and willed her house to a construction superintendent she had befriended and he had sold the house in 2009 to the highest bidder, a real estate entrepreneur named Greg Pinneo, according to Reuters. It was because of Pinneo’s carelessness that the auction was held on Friday as he had filed for bankruptcy.

The house then became famous after publicists for the ‘Up’ movie tied a cluster of balloons to the little two story house in 2009. This was done in order to market the Disney-Pixar movie that was about an old man who refuses to sell his home and flies off in the house tied to balloons. The movie made more than $700 million at the box office worldwide and even won an Oscar for the best animated movie in 2010. 

The company that owns the small house now owes nearly $186,000 prompting the auction of the house. The opening bid at the auction was set at $216,270.70, according to SeattlePi. However none of the five interested bidders placed a bid for the house at the auction that took place on Friday.

This has made the future of the house uncertain and now it is in the hands of a bank until a buyer is found for the house. Michael Stephens who has a Macefield tattoo on her arm thinks this is a relief as he said that this will give community members more time to raise money in order to buy the property.

Moreover at the auction on Friday only a handful of people came to see the famous house. A Facebook event page was even created for the auction that invited people to bring a balloon with them.

At the auction one of the bidders flew all the way from Los Angeles in order to but the house. He stated that he wanted to buy the house in order to turn the house into an office for his record label, Microhits. Apart from this 20 people have even gotten a tattoo of the house as a symbol for standing up for what you believe in.