A California couple is under contract to purchase the Palm Beach, Fla., home of Bernie and Ruth Madoff, according to a local newspaper.
The final price will remain undisclosed until the sale is completed, but CNBC.com said the buyers' offer was $5.65 million.
The 8,753-square-foot home was originally listed for $8.5 million. The price of the home was cut this summer to $6.5 million.
"Obviously this is good news,'' Roland Ubaldo, supervisory deputy of the U.S. Marshals Service in the Southern District of New York told the New York Daily News. "We are under contract for the Palm Beach property, but, as they say, 'it's not sold till it's sold.'''
Once the property is sold, the proceeds will go to the Department of Justice Fund that benefits victims of Bernie Madoff's financial schemes.
The unidentified owners were said to have fallen in love with the property at first sight. The California couple are paying cash, the Daily News said.
"They saw it only once,'' Sothebys' Mary Boykin, who worked with the buyers, told the Daily News. "They fell in love with the place and didn't care about its provenance."
The boat dock was apparently a selling point, though it can't be said about the "bull" motif the Madoffs enjoyed. Those sculptures, paintings and figurines will most likely be part of an auction once the house is officially off the market.
The home is the last of the three properties to be sold by the Madoffs. The others were a beach house in Montauk, N.Y., and a Manhattan penthouse.
Bernie Madoff is currently serving a 150-year sentence in a North Carolina prison for orchestrating a $65 billion Ponzi scheme. Estimated losses from the scheme were $18 billion.
