You can buy this town for $399,000

Screengrab of Swett, South Dakota on Google Earth

For the price of a small condo in Toronto, you can be the owner of your very own town. Priced at just $399,000, Swett, South Dakota is looking for a buyer.

The price includes the Swett Tavern, a workshop, three trailers, the town's only house — yes, you'll also be the town's only resident — and just over 6 acres of land. Feel free to name yourself the mayor, too. It may be a great place to retire Rob Ford to.


Lance Benson, the sole owner of the town and one of its three current residents — Benson, Benson's wife and Benson's cat — told the Rapid City Journal that he would love to keep the town, but needs to focus on his travelling concession business.
" If I don't sell it this first year, I would probably keep it," he said, reluctant to say goodbye to Swett.
In the 1940s, Swett was a town of about 40 residents. It even had a post office and grocery store. Now the tavern is its only meeting place. Fortunately, because the tavern is the only bar within a 10-mile radius, the town's new owner won't be lonely.
The Rapid City Journal called the tavern the hamlet's "beating heart," the "defacto gathering place for a small army of local cowboys and wheat growers."
Swett is a real steal, especially compared to Scenic, South Dakota, which went on the market for double Benson's asking price in 2011 (to be fair, Scenic came with a dance hall, a saloon, two jails, a train depot, two stores and a handful of empty buildings).


If you do end up buying Swett — beats spending the same on a one-bedroom concrete box in the city — you might want to call Don Sammons for some advice. The Wyoming man was the sole resident of Buford for years, running the town's popular trading post, until he sold it to a Vietnamese entrepreneur in 2012 for $900,000. New owner Pham Dinh Nguyen renamed the town "PhinDeli Town Buford," with big plans to use the tiny town as the American launching pad for his brand of Vietnamese coffee.
In 2012, the Tuscan village of Pratariccia was put up for sale on eBay for $3.2 million. The "in need of restoration" hilltop hamlet was just 40 kilometres from Florence, the perfect spot for an investor to develop a luxury holiday getaway.
That same year, Seattle telecom billionaire Craig McCaw put B.C.'s 342-hectare James Island on the market for $75 million. It doesn't just have a Western tavern, it features an entire mock western village, complete with a stable, organic garden and general store. Also featured in the listing is a Jack Nicklaus-designed golf course, six guest homes, a 5,000-square-foot estate, entertainment complex, pool, outdoor fire pit, private dock and airstrip.
For those not limited by a Swatt-sized budget, the luxury island is still for sale.