Morning Brief: Broker Raffles His Annapolis House

It is Monday morning and time to take a look at the local business scene. Some people in the housing market are getting increasingly creative when it comes to selling.

[Bigred55]

I am holding a twist on the house raffle. Visit my website (http://www.ownahomefor100.com )to see my concept, it's a little different than those I've seen. I researched the topic for months trying to avoid the illegal gambling aspect & think I've been successful. House raffles are about the only way to get out of a house in this market & still keep your shirt. We have hundreds of thousands of homeowners in homes that are worth less than they owe. The only way they'll ever get the money they need is by spreading the burden around by means of a house raffle. No one person has to buy their home for too much money. The house raffle can collect the amount needed regardless of the home's worth. It relieves the distressed homeowner from the burden of the mortgage without the need to carry a foreclosure around for 10 yrs, it pays the bank in full not a short sale or another foreclosure, each raffle gives money to a pre-arranged charity & to top it all off, the winner gets the house, paid off, free & clear. With today's overly strict lending standards, that family may not have been able to qualify for a mortgage & now they own a home free & clear. House raffles are a win-win all the way around. They could single handedly save many foreclosures from happening, spare the families, pets & credit of everyone involved. If they were not considered illegal gambling & could be advertised openly as house raffles they would draw more participants than they do now being advertised as essay contests, etc. Folks love the thought of buying a ticket for $100 for about a 1:4000 chance to win a house with no mortgage. It's better odds than you get in a mega-lottery at about 1:157million! Visit my website for details on my concept & get involved. If we all participated in one or two of these $100 raffles a year, instead of going out to dinner or buying a new pair of shoes we could save thousands of homeowners, put folks in homes that may not otherwise have been able to own one, help out some struggling charities, save some poor helpless pets from being abandoned & give the banks something other than another foreclosure. I'm considering petitioning Congress to waive any restrictions on house raffles so they can be utilized to help the American homeowner right now. Once things settle down & the market stailizes, they can put all their restrictions back, but for now it's necessary for them to set them aside for the greater good of the American homeowner. I'd appreciate any feedback There's an e-mail link on my website http://www.ownahomefor100.com

[Jacquie Davies]

I wanted to post a progress report on my website http://www.ownahomefor100.com . Things are going pretty well to date. The holidays didn't help, but the slow down only lasted for about a week. I wish I could get TV/Radio to pick up the story because that would do the trick.

I'm currently working on a Petition to Congress asking them to set aside the restrictions on house raffles until real estate stabilizes. The fact that we have to run 'essay' contests & can't collect entry fees makes it much more difficult to market & promote. If we could openly promote raffles for what they are we could complete them in much quicker time frames, which would enable more homeowners to use them to avoid forclosure.

I know realtors are not big fans of house raffles, but they will not impact the business of regular realtors. The main users of house raffles will be those in distress, ready for foreclosure or trying to do a short sale. I'm not a realtor, but I know they really dislike short sales. They are labor intense, take months to complete & most often times the banks rejects the offer that was submitted. It's an excercise in futility for most realtors to undertake a short sale & most of them do not handle forclosure sales, so the house raffles wouldn't hurt them at all. If distressed homes could be raffled, it would free realtors to sell the homes of those not in distress with the added bonus of better property value because instead of empty forclosures on the block, the homes would be occupied by owners that could afford to live there & care for the property. Area merchants could stay open & operating because instead of the ghost towns we're making now with the forclosures, we would have stable communities. I think it could be a great partnership, but we need the restrictions lifted.

As a side note, I've been swamped with homeowner e-mails asking me to help them do the same thing for their house that I'm doing for mine, so the need is great.

I'll continue to update.