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Winnipeg Free Press - PRINT EDITION
For sale: everything but the Yorkshire terrier
BORIS MINKEVICH / WINNIPEG FREE PRESS Except for a few personal items, and his dog, Kerry Hogan is selling all his possessions to follow his dream. (BORIS MINKEVICH)
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How much is a life worth? If you ask Kerry Hogan, he'd say about $1.1 million, as that's the price tag he's put on his worldly possessions.
The 51-year-old Winnipeg native and owner of Gags Unlimited is selling almost everything he owns: his fully furnished house, car, boat, RV, as well as his business, on the listing website Kijiji. He's doing this, he said, because he wants a change in his life.
"I've always needed new experiences, and I've always needed new thrills, and I guess I'm a bit of a thrill-seeker, but I don't want to endanger my life doing it," he said.
After a heart attack a few years ago, Hogan said, he decided to take matters into his own hands. He looked into buying a hotel in Honduras, but the timing wasn't quite right. His major problem, he said, was figuring out how to sell everything.
"It's like, what do I sell first? If I sell my house, what do I do with the stuff, and once the house sells, where will I live?... If I sell the house and the boat takes another month-and-a-half, then I'm still not prepared to go down and buy my dream, plus all the other stuff," he said.
The solution, he said, was to discount everything and sell it together so he could get rid of it all at once. While he's selling everything for $1.1 million, he said he's unsure of the actual value.
"I don't know, and I don't think I want to. It's all relative. I got pictures hanging on the wall that I might have paid 400 bucks for. What is it worth? Nobody is going to pay me 400, I don't think. But would they pay me two, or would they pay me 20 bucks? I don't know how to evaluate that," he said.
His plan, he said, is to go to Mexico to buy a small bed-and-breakfast.
The only things he doesn't plan on selling are a few personal items: pictures, records, some clothes and his dog. Though the Yorkshire terrier is on sale in the listing, Hogan said the dog will either go with him or stay with his adult daughter. Everything else, people can buy.
"I don't really own too much. It's just stuff. I'd like to part with it. I'd want to know what it feels like not to own all of this and all the stuff that comes with it," he said.
"There's tools in the garage, they're yours."
The listing has got a lot of attention, with about 39,000 views since it went up Feb. 19. He said he's got few firm offers. A couple of people offered to buy parts of the listing, but he said he's only selling it as a package.
He said he's also been getting emails from people with cancer, stroke victims and others, encouraging him and telling him how his story made them rethink their lives.
"I had one email that said, 'You're a game-changer and you're going to do great.' "
Hogan said he's thankful for the attention and excitement, and still hopes somebody will take him up on his offer.
"People sit around waiting for something to happen. They wake up every morning and they go to a job they don't like, shovel snow in a house they can't afford. They just do it, day in, day out," he said. "I'm single, I live in a large house by myself, I go to bed at night alone, I wake up alone, and I'm sitting there: 'Wow, what am I waiting for?' "
oliver.sachgau@freepress.mb.ca
Republished from the Winnipeg Free Press print edition February 26, 2013 B2
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