What do they have against house raffles?
I watched a video, then read an article on MSNBC this afternoon about a couple in Austria that held a house raffle. The video & printed report have different numbers, but the bottom line is that this house raffle was a success! The house was worth approximately 1 million dollars & they sold approximately 10,000 tickets at 99 euro ($128USD). If the print story attached is correct, they may have slightly over sold the tickets, but in any case it worked. People like the idea of plunking down $100 for the opportunity to win a mortgage free home! The odds of winning their home were 1 in 10,000 compared to any lotto or casino usually 1 in 150 million! In reality, the odds in most house raffles are closer to 1 in 3,500-6,000. The idea that there’s a home at the end of the contest, plus the fact that buying a ticket is actually helping another human being & a Charity is very appealing.
At the rate our country is going, home ownership will be a thing of the past for many middle class Americans. The impossibly high lending standards being imposed on consumers today are already locking regular families out of the game. I feel for young couples & families that may never know the American Dream of home ownership. What has happened to this country?
Here’s why the Austrian raffle worked so well…
THEY WERE ALLOWED TO MARKET, PROMOTE & ADVERTISE THEIR RAFFLE AS A RAFFLE! There was no need to disguise it as an essay contest or game of skill, it was a house raffle, plain & simple!
I thought yes, this is how it should be. I was feeling hopeful, thinking ahead to a time when we’ll see stories just like that about average American homeowners, ahhh, there may still be hope… it was just then that the American reporter ended her story by saying the following:
“The Austrian government doesn’t have any rules for selling houses through a lottery, but officials say they’re considering a CRACKDOWN before more homeowners try this tactic.”
I wanted to scream … CRACKDOWN? She made it sound like they were trafficking drugs or smuggling guns! All they did was ‘sell’ their ownhome, which is a mystifying feat in this day & age! The ONLY reason they resorted to a raffle is because they were unable to sell the house using traditional methods. House raffles are not about making lots of money, they’re about getting out of distress! OMG, I’m simply horrified by the things that people say.
If we’re talking CRACKDOWN why not apply that term to REAL CRIMINALS, like the guys on Wall Street that bilked billions & billions from the American people, then came back for bail-out money, then spent that on trips & bonuses & came back for more??!!!! Oh, no, I guess it’s easier to hold down a middle class homeowner, we’re so tired already that we hardly fight back anymore!
I am outraged by this, so I’m starting a poll in my next post, please visit & vote:
DO YOU THINK HOUSE RAFFLES SHOULD BE LEGALIZED?
Please let me know what you think & ask others to add their opinion. I mentioned in other posts that I’m working on a Petition to Congress to lift the restrictions on house raffles. Now that we have a new administration, let’s see if they can help us get this done.
A note to Realtors: I know there are Realtors out there that don’t like house raffles & you’re working against them. Please know that house raffles are not going to hurt you & may help you. House raffles will be used by homeowners in distress, at short sale level or maybe even farther along. I know you guys hate short sales because of the extra work involved & because so many don’t come to fruition & mainstream Realtors don’t handle foreclosures, so these are not homes that you’d be selling anyway.
If we manage to get some of these homes raffled, it’ll do nothing but help you because the neighborhoods will remain in tact, not littered with foreclosures. It’ll make your job easier, because the houses that go to raffles will have new owners that can afford to keep them. Property taxes will get paid, local merchants will be able to remain open, home values for the neighborhood should start to go up or at least stabilize when we stop the influx of foreclosures.
The faster we can get things back to normal, the faster the market will come back.
HOUSE RAFFLES ARE NOT COMPETITION TO REALTORS ~ PLEASE HELP US
