Basically this charity selects a homeowner that has his multi-million home on the MLS.. They agree to take their home off of the MLS during the raffle dates, in return for marketing/PR from the charity and the possibility that the raffle “winner” will want the house (doubt it)…
The actual winner has a choice between getting that home (which most likely they won’t take it because they wouldn’t be able to afford the income taxes on the home + property tax + other costs of upkeeping the home) OR they choose the cash prize, which is considerably less (around $1million)..
The “owner” of the dream home basically gets a free advertisement of his/her estate that is up for sale and the possibility that some raffle winner will want the home, upon which the charity buys the home at the listed price.
Don’t think of it as a raffle ticket…..Think of it as a high yield junk bond 🙂
