Jon and Kate (Plus 8) Can't Sell Their Home Either

(MoneyWatch)  When agents market a house for sale, they use every marketing means at their disposal. A little old-fashioned publicity never hurts: If the listing agent can get the home featured in the local newspaper, or in a nationally-syndicated column, it should help the home sell faster.

But if Jon & Kate (plus 8 really cute kids) are having trouble selling their own house, where does that leave you?

If you follow Federal Reserve Chairmen as if they were rock stars, you may not have heard about Jon and Kate Gosselin, who along with their 8 children are the stars of a popular reality television show on TLC, which is owned by Discovery Communications, Inc. (owner of the Discover Channel, Animal Planet, etc.).

In addition to getting free everything (including a tummy tuck for Kate, who I'm sure needed it to be bikini-ready for her latest beach outing sans Jon), the fat weekly television fee Jon and Kate are collecting to bare their lives, loves and bikinis on the show helped pay for a fabulous new house complete with a knock-out pool.

The purchase of the new 24-acre compound was apparently covered in a previous season of the show, as were the preparations for getting the old house in Elizabethtown, Pa. on the market. (It's a bear to have to take down studio lights from your living room and patch up the ceiling for a future buyer.)

But now Jon & Kate's old house has been listed for sale for 90 days (and counting!) without an offer. The property has 5 bedrooms, 2 1/2 baths, and the Gosselins' paid $280,000 for it. It is currently listed for $325,000 (I couldn't confirm it, but web reports suggest the house was originally priced at $350,000).

Could this house get any more publicity? I don't think so. There are thousands of stories on the web linking back to the listing. Millions of people have seen the listing, looked it up on Zillow (Jon & Kate are on Zillow's home page), and imagined themselves living there.

Which only proves the point: Publicity is good as far as it goes, but there's no guarantee it'll bring a buyer to your door. What matters these days is very old school: Price, location, and condition.

UPDATE February 17, 2010: Jon and Kate finally sold their starter home in 2010.

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