Oregon town up for sale

PORTLAND, Oregon (Reuters) - The small town of Otis, Oregon is up for sale again as its octogenarian owner tries to find a buyer willing to part with $3 million (1.91 million pounds) for a restaurant, gas station, market, Pronto Pup corn dog shack, two homes and a barn.


Together with 190 acres (77 hectares) along the scenic Salmon River, three miles (5 km) from the scenic Oregon coast, the town's new owners will get the right to name the town, said Vivian Lematta, 83, who hung a "for sale" sign on her hometown for the second time in five years.


"I'm tired of the town," she said on Wednesday from her home in Churchville, Maryland. "It's a burden. The government has come in there and made all these new rules and it just isn't as much fun as it used to be."


Lematta's grandfather bought Otis a few years before she was born for $5,000.


In 1999, she put it on the market with the same asking price of $3 million, but got no takers even though interested parties supposedly included wealthy film stars Clint Eastwood and California Gov. Arnold Schwarzenegger.


But real estate agent Judy Pluard believes the town will sell this time, perhaps to someone aiming to get in on Oregon's nascent wine boom.


"We've got some target people for this property. We can't disclose them yet, but we can say that we think this would make an excellent place for someone in the wine industry," she said.