First home of Benedict XVI prepared for sale

OverThere: Two months after Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger became Pope Benedict XVI, the current owner of his birth house is selling up to escape the hordes of curious tourists.

The two-storey house, built in 1745 in the small Bavarian town of Marktl am Inn, now attracts hundreds of visitors a day who ring the bell and ask to see Joseph Ratzinger's nursery, leaving owner Claudia Dandl at her wits' end.

"We don't have a private life any more and the children don't dare leave the house," she said.

The house, under memorial protection and described as an "architectural gem" by its agent, is a full-brick structure with a plaster bond exterior, a Biedermeier front door, timber roof and a vaulted cellar.

Two plaques on the exterior commemorate two famous former residents, Pope Benedict and Georg Lankensperger, the Bavarian engineer who invented pivot axle steering.

The house sits on the market square on a 1,043m2 plot with a garden, coach house and annex.

The living area totals 237 m2 with a 263 m2 utility area.

The ground floor has three reception rooms, a large kitchen, two bathrooms and a storage room.

On the first floor are five rooms, a large bathroom and storage room as well as a long balcony and a large attic. The Dandl family began an extensive but careful renovation in 1999, restoring the original ground plan structure. The entire top floor was renovated with two bathrooms installed, all interior walls were replastered, windows, doors and stucco detail were repaired, and parquet and tiled floors restored.

The house was rewired and an expensive oil-fired central heating system added while retaining the wood-fired oven and three stoves.

The mayor of Marktl, Mr Hubert Gschwendtner, is hoping to put together a bid on behalf of the town and to turn the house into a museum.

"The opening of the birth house would be a great enrichment for Marktl and for the visitors," he said. But the town cannot afford to bid on its own and is hoping for a cash-rich cultural or religious body to come forward - as of this week the mayor was still waiting.

The house will not be sold by regular auction and there is no unofficial guide price, though a seven-figure sum is expected. Munich agent Dr Karin Friedlmaier is collecting bids for the Dandl family, who will then sort through offers. The deciding factor will not simply be price, according to Dr Friedlmaier, but the concept potential buyers have for opening up the house to tourists.

Anyone who misses out on the Pope's birth house but still interested in a little bit of papal history should visit the German Ebay site. On offer is the apartment block in Bonn where the pope lived from 1959-1963. The block has six four-room apartments and a ground-floor shop and was built in 1959. The apartment building was renovated a decade ago and has an asking price of euro 930,000. The current annual rental income is €58,000.