Our $1.7million iPad: Couple sell their tiny $6,000 home to Apple after computer giant tells them: 'Name your price'

For Donnie and Kathy Fulbright, it's the 'iDeal' situation. 

The North Carolina couple have bucked the housing trend rather spectacularly - by selling their $6,000 home to computer giant Apple for $1.7million.

The pair - who have now built a brand new dream house with the proceeds - had lived in their tiny home in rural Maiden, North Carolina, for 34 years. 

Apple of Apple's eye: Donnie and Kathy Fulbright, who sold their $6,000 home to the computer giant for $1.7million


Modest: The $6,000 home that the Fulbrights lived in for 34 years - before Apple came along




Name your price: The home sits on less than one acre of land - but that land happens to be right where Apple want to build their new $1billion facility

They had no plans to move.

But when Apple Inc said they wanted to buy the property, which originally cost just under $6,000 and sits on less than one acre of land, they finally agreed.

'They told us to put a price on it and we did,' Kathy Fulbright, 62, told a U.S. newspaper.

The couple used the proceeds from the sale to build a new 4,200 square-foot house - on 49 acres, boasting a jacuzzi and pond.

They said they rejected Apple's first offer, and second. Well, they always did say that the third time's  the charm. 

Apple is in the process of building a $1billion data centre on the surrounding property.

Moving on up: The dream house that the couple built with the profits from the sale on 49 acres of land


Retiring with style: The 4,200-square foot house boasts a jacuzzi and a man-made pond filled with bass and catfish

The gigantic warehouse-like facility is set to be humming with servers and generators that will deliver all the digital entertainment that makes Apple's flagship products - the iPod, iPhone and iPad - so popular.

The centre - dubbed 'Project Dolphin' by officials - is believed to be aiming at allowing customers to download the products via the online iTunes store.

But they will be able to download to the 'cloud' - that is, via internet-based computing, with resources and software provided to computers on demand, similar to an electricity grid.

Using the cloud - rather than downloading data on to a hard drive - is set to speed things up considerably.

The Fulbrights live in the rural town of Maiden, North Carolina

An Apple spokesperson declined to comment on what exactly the company is planning in Maiden, a tiny town of 3,200.

But speculation was rife, with analysts suggesting the company could also be examining as-yet unannounced initiatives - like forays into social networking and search, according to a Bloomberg report.

That would pit Apple against those current industry giants, Facebook and Google.

Google has already opened a facility near Maiden, and the town officials are hoping that the combined power of the two names will help put their town on the map. 

Google has already employed 80 people - Apple is set to hire 50, but generate 3,000. 

Officials have already bent over backwards to make the area attractive to Apple. 

North Carolina’s legislature approved $46million in tax breaks for the company. 

Local governments also slashed Apple’s real property taxes by half and slashed personal property taxes by 85 per cent.

But as good a deal as the move may be for Apple, surely it can't top the deal that the Fulbrights made.

[Via Daily Mail UK]