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Comment by nrmitchi | Hacker News Reader

Well if that’s the case, I’d like to buy your house for $50k. That seems like ample compensation for you just changing your address and you should take it.

The point here is:

- someone with knowledge of something’s value tried to by something - person who owned it realized that they didn’t know the value - person realized the value and decided he wasn’t going to undercut himself.

Now in this situation, you’re calling the 79 year old man greedy, rather than the company being greedy? The company that is fairly-clearly trying to run an old man over with legal fees to steal something that they don’t own?

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>Well if that’s the case, I’d like to buy your house for $50k. That seems like ample compensation for you just changing your address and you should take it.

1) Parent post never accepted an offer to sell their house to you.

2) $50k is not ample compensation for any house almost anywhere, as shown by median housing prices.

> 1) Parent post never accepted an offer to sell their house to you.

Neither did the old man. So, case closed?

$50k is not ample compensation for a domain that is worth $500k to Jump.

I feel like a key difference here is that the owner was initially willing to sell for $50k. He was the one coming up with this price tag in the first place, wasn’t he?

> I feel like a key difference here is that the owner was initially willing to sell for $50k.

He said it as a clear joke. Here's a ridiculously huge number for a novelty, a bauble - now go away.

How was it a clear joke?

50k isn't a ridiculously huge number though? Domains have gone for much much more in the past

So when a house is listed for sale for an asking price, does that mean the seller is obligated to sell for only that amount? The seller came up with that price tag in the first place.

The owner never stated a willingness to sell, just a price.

If you come up to me while I riding my bike and says "I'll give you 25 dollars for that" and I respond "it's price is 500 dollars firm", that doesn't mean you can then give me 500 dollars and take my bike or sue me for refusing. That is ridiculous.

Even if I did have an intention of selling the bike at that price, I am in the middle of using it and can easily accept or reject attempts to buy it at a time that is inconvenient for me. Similarly, it is also my right to choose who buys my bike at that price. If it has strong emotional value I may refuse to sell it to someone who I don't think will treat it well.

This is classic offer and acceptance in contract law. If you did indeed offer, in writing, $50k for that person's house in something that wasn't a joke offer, and then other person accepted for whatever reason before you rescinded the offer, that's a valid contract for sale of something. There may be additional concerns given it's real property and not goods, but the point stands: the owner was presented with an offer, then countered the offer with $50k, and the first party accepted the offer. All in writing. This creates a valid contract.

Houses sell all the time after multiple offers and sometimes not at all, even in the presence of a full asking-price offer.

Indeed, however an offer by itself doesn't create anything binding. One of the other critical pieces is the acceptance of that offer. Otherwise we'd have situations where someone was forced to sell their house simply for being in the presence of an offer!

The point is that setting an "asking price" does not in itself constitute a binding offer.

Nobody is forced to sell their house to a particular buyer because that buyer emailed back with "accept" in response to an inquiry about the price.

But it isn't.

> I’d like to buy your house for $50k.

If I say "it's worth about twice that", are you now allowed to evict me? I think not.

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