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Auction
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What if you could buy a house for $100.00!? |
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 In some real estate markets, home owners are turning to a raffle to try to sell their home. (Thanks to Josh for the tip!)For example, Angela Schaab in Grand Rapids, Michigan is attempting to sell her boardwalk condo by selling 2,500 $100 raffle tickets. As of today (9/27/2008) she has sold 235 tickets. Or, read the story of several owners attempting raffles in the Wall Street Journal's Raffles: Real Estate's Latest Game of Chance. So --- what do you think? If there were a house on the market in Harrisonburg, and you could buy a raffle ticket for $100 --- would you buy one? | |
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Selling Building Lots via Auction |
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Stone Spring Manor is a newly developed subdivision in the City of Harrisonburg featuring 19 building lots. Prior to July 2008, seven of these building lots had sold, several of them having homes built on them. The lot sales included sales prices between $58,000 and $79,800. The home sales included sales prices between $262,000 and $292,000. Yesterday (7/16/08), the remaining 12 building lots were to be sold at auction. The auction generated a quite a bit of interest, with close to 30 or 35 people present. Much of the draw was likely a curiosity of the price at which these lots would sell. So, how did it go down?  The plat above and the chart below show the order in which the six lots sold at auction, and their prices. Lot Sale #1 Lot 14 $46,000 Lot Sale #2 Lot 15 $38,000 Lot Sale #3 Lot 16 $39,000 Lot Sale #4 Lot 3 $34,000 Lot Sale #5 Lot 11 $33,000 Lot Sale #6 Lot 9 $38,000 The remaining lots are for sale with asking prices between $46,500 and $64,400. | |
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Scott Rogers
Coldwell Banker
Funkhouser Realtors
540-578-0102
scott@cbfunkhouser.com
Licensed in the
Commonwealth of Virginia
Nope. But then I have never bought a lottery ticket either. I'm not sure that it would go over very well in a small-ish city like Harrisonburg -- and $100 is still a fair amount of money to 'blow' for most of us.
September 28, 2008 8:54 pm
Laura -- I too was wondering about the effect of being in a smaller area. Grand Rapids had a population of 197,800 in the 2000 census --- so the condo raffle lady is hoping that 1.26% of that population would buy a ticket. If 1.26% of Harrisonburg's population (40,468 in the 2000 census) bought tickets, that would only be 510 tickets. So......if she sells 2500 tickets, she is able to get $250,000 for her condo. The 510 tickets sold in Harrisonburg would only provide someone with $51,000 -- not as exciting!
(Yes, people could buy multiple tickets, and people outside of the area could buy tickets, but that might happen at the same proportional ratio).
September 28, 2008 9:05 pm
It gets better! Someone bought a house in Michigan off Ebay for $1.75!
http://www.yourhome.ca/homes/article/509446
October 2, 2008 3:23 pm
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