I saw a clip on CNN.com about a family in Maryland who has decided to try to raffle off their house that they have been unable to sell in conjunction with San Mar Children's Home.
Here is the clip if you would like to view: 
http://www.cnn.com/video/#/video/us/2008/02/02/bolduan.family.raffles.home.cnn
They are selling the tickets for $100. and must sell 5,000 to have the raffle. If they fail to sell enough, they must return all the money, which sounds like a major headache to me.
It makes me need aspirin just thinking about it!!
In Rhode Island, all raffles must be approved by the Rhode Island State Police Charitable Gaming Unit. I assume it is probably similar in Maryland which is why they have teamed up with a charity.
I once had an out of state seller who had a property he wanted to get rid of. He didn't want to deal with the tenants any longer. I did not know him or anything about the property when he contacted me. He found me online. I found that I was the 5th Realtor who had the listing in 2 years. I had my work cut out for me. I was determined to sell this home. I did my comparibles and got the seller to agree to a reasonable price. I then got ready to market the property and GET IT SOLD. Unfortunately, luck was not on our side and the home had a fire the weekend after I listed it.
I now had to coordinate with contractors to show the property. The owner wanted to get rid of it more than ever. This was not the market to try to sell a investment property in this condition. The contractor was doing a great job but the seller was getting itchy and inquired about auctioning the property. I explained to him that in this market people at auctions are looking for bargains. While there was a little room on his price, his loan amount did not allow for that much room. He insisted I should do this and would not leave it alone. Finally, I called an auctioneer in the area. He said they would start the price at 30% below the lowest price home in the area. Once I told the seller that, he rethought the idea. I told him to be patient, we were priced well and would find a buyer.
Once the work was just about complete, I was able to find a buyer. There were a few fire code issues that needed to be done to bring it up to code, but they were done and we CLOSED!!!!
Recently, I have been made aware of a service called Realtybid.com.
Here is a link to an article The Providence Journal wrote about it:
http://www.projo.com/projohomes/content/HO_online011308_01-13-08_728H94C_v44.1b9e277.html
It remains to be seen if it will work in our market. Sometimes things that take off in other parts of the country just don't seem to work here, we shall see.
In the end, price is still king. 
Comments(3)