South Dakota’s Swett town on sale for $400000 is slashed to $250000

Town of Swett became famous when it was listed for $400,000 in 2014
Owners and lone residents left and now the town belongs to a bank
Swett includes tavern, garage and a house that locals believe is haunted
Previous offers for town included proposals for reality television shows

Christopher Brennan For Dailymail.com

Published:
16:12 GMT, 30 November 2015

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Updated:
00:46 GMT, 1 December 2015

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A South Dakota town that made headlines around the world when the entire thing went up for sale has lowered its price after being completely abandoned.

Swett, now a ghost town near the Nebraska border, is now listed for $250,000 after the man who offered the property for $400,000 last year lost it to the bank and moved out of a ‘haunted’ house.

Stacie Montgomery, a real estate agent with Keller Williams, said that she has received a mixture of serious and less-serious offers for the property, but decided to lower the price after they all fell through.

The town of Swett, South Dakota, is now on offer for $250,000 after more than a year failing to sell at $400,000. Above, a new sign for the town that replaced an old one with bullet holes

Former resident Lance Benson, put the property up for sale last summer with the help of real estate agent Stacie Montgomery (right), but now it belongs to a bank

Lance Benson had bought 6.16-acre Swett in 1998, but decided to sell it last year to focus on his traveling concession business.

He had said that he would consider keeping the town if it did not sell within a year, but lost the property last month to a bank in Gordon, Nebraska, that owns the mortgage, according to the Rapid City Journal.

Though the town founded in 1932 once had a post office and a grocery store, now even Benson’s bar, the centerpiece of last year’s offer, has shuttered since the owner and his wife left.

Though in recent years only two people lived in Swett, the town and its bar were popular with hunters during pheasant season as well as local farmers.

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The small town was founded in the 1930s, and once had a post office and a grocery store before residents moved away

The centerpiece of the town is the Swett Tavern, which was popular among local hunters and farmers who drove into town

The bar was said to be particularly popular among nearby residents during pheasant season, but closed when Benson moved out

It also includes a four-bedroom house and garage, though three decaying mobile homes and a transport truck have been removed by the bank.

Montgomery said in a Facebook post that local residents believe the house to be haunted, a detail that seemed to be missing from its listing last summer.

She told Daily Mail Online that many who have stayed the night in the house have ‘felt a presence’ but that the otherworldly being was ‘friendly’.

Other improvements include a new town sign, which used to have bullet holes in it.

The real estate said that she was flooded with call after the town made international news with the $400,000 offer, including some from Australia, China and Germany.

Swett also includes a house and garage, though Montgomery now says that locals believe the dwelling to be haunted

The real estate agent received messages from around the world about the property, though offers fell through. Above, the interior of the house

One man from Nebraska said that he wanted to use the town to film a reality television show involving thousands of women from Russia, 600 convicted felons and acrylic houses.

Other offers included a man who wanted to film a deodorant commercial and a ‘self employed pipe-organ tuner looking for a shop and relocation’.

The entire town of Scenic, South Dakota, which occupies 46 acres about 80 miles away, sold to a Philippines-based church in 2011.

It had a gas station, store and museum in addition to a bar.