400 potential buyers for Pope's birthplace

A woman selling the house where Pope Benedict XVI was born said today she has received more than 400 offers, including at least one bid of €8.8m.

Claudia Dandl announced in June that she would sell the white Alpine stucco-style house with yellow trim in the Bavarian village of Marktl an Inn because she couldn’t cope with the growing crowds of sightseers.

Ahead of the deadline for offers at midnight tonight, more than 400 interested parties had submitted bids, including a firm from the United Arab Emirates, a spokeswoman for the family said.

However, only between 20 and 30 of the offers appeared ”serious,” spokeswoman Viktoria Rauh said. She didn’t say who offered the biggest sum.

Dandl has said the two-story house on the market square will not be sold automatically to the highest bidder, but to someone with a good plan to open it to the public.

Town officials would like to turn the rooms where the pope was born into a museum, and all bidders are required to also submit a proposal of how they would use the house. The town, which has an option to buy it, is among the bidders.

Rauh said Dandl would weigh all the proposals carefully and it was unclear when she would announce the winning offer.

Built in 1745 as a customs house, the building had been turned into a police station when the former Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger was born on April 16, 1927. His father was the local commander and had his quarters there.

Benedict lived in the house only two years before his family moved.

Dandl bought the building and the adjoining yard in 1999 and refurbished it for herself and her two young children.

But she says that life has become unbearable because of the swarms of tourists, some of whom peek through the windows or ring the doorbell to ask if they can come inside.