Dream Home Competition – Win A House

Win a house vs Buy a house. Is Dream Home Competition a revolutionary type of Estate Agent?

This novel ‘Estate Agent’ type house-sale-competition aims to combat the downturn in property prices by selling multiple luxury or ‘Dream’ homes in a competition. Dream Home Competition Ltd. was set up by Jon Sammon of Sammon Building Contractors in 2008. In the current housing market, many people, especially those with larger more expensive properties, would loose hundreds of thousands of pounds if they were to sell their house on the open market. This novel way of selling houses allows the vendors to achieve, at least, the price they would have received pre-recession, whilst also offering anyone in the UK the exciting chance to win a life changing ‘Dream Home’ using their skill and judgement.

There have been a handful of house-sale-competitions in the UK and, to date, only one competition has successfully sold sufficient tickets to offer the house as a prize rather than a prize cash fund; The Oldborough Retreat in Devon successfully sold 46,000 £25 tickets and were able to award the house to the lucky winner in May 2009. However, they were fraught with legal issues and problems and the competition was twice stopped by the Gambling Commission.

Jon said, “We set up the web site having little understanding of the intricacies of the gambling laws and the competition was stopped by the Gambling commission after just one 1 month and we had to pay back all the ticket entries. I was given a rude awakening as to how to (or not to) run a legal competition.”  After a fast track lesson in running a legal competition Jon restarted his competition to sell the Yorkshire House. The competition ultimately sold just 731, £20 tickets which wasn’t sufficient for the Yorkshire House to be raffled. However, the competition was completed successfully and the Gambling Commission were happy for Jon to award the prize fund of £9,540 to Elizabeth Graham of Yeadon, Leeds.

With this experience under his belt and now a good understanding of running a legal competition, Jon came up with the idea of expanding the web site to have a choice of ‘dream’ houses to be won in competitions in a novel kind of Estate Agent set up, but where everyone could afford to purchase a ticket and potentially win a ‘Dream Home’. However, for Jon to have got to this stage it took 18 months and a whopping £45,000. Jon said, “We have encountered problems at almost every step including; finding a solicitor that was willing to be involved, setting up bank accounts (with Barclays) and payment options for ticket sales (ultimately Paypoint). Every business that we have graced has needed to satisfy it self that this is a legal competition and that it won’t get any negative press from the competition. All this has taken time…and money…and endurance!”

Despite the difficulties in setting it up, Jon has always been encouraged by the interest and support he has received from people with ‘dream’ properties to sell. “We even had very strong interest from a well known footballer who stood to loose £2,000,000 (2 million pounds) selling his property in the current housing market.” Along with the original five bed detached town house in Horsforth, Yorkshire worth £500,000, the web site now has a second property positioned in West Wickham, Cambridge; This six bedroom, SE Cambridge property, is currently being run as a successful holiday cottage and generates a cool £60,000 a year. The winner could either choose to live in it, continue using it as a holiday cottage and enjoy a monthly income, or cash it in and sell. The web site also encourages anyone interested in selling their property on the competition web site to make contact, “for the competition to work, we need a supply of unusual or extraordinary properties” Jon Sammon.

Over the next six to twelve months, Jon plans to take on up to three other properties, all in different categories for example; Apartment, Town House, Country residence and perhaps even a luxury Celebrity House? Each category would have a ticket price that relates to the property price and the odds of winning, for example, the less expensive Apartment may be priced at £20 a ticket and have odds of 8,000 to 1 and the Luxury Celebrity House may be priced at £50 a ticket and have odds of 100,000 to 1. What ever the odds are Dream Home Competition Ltd. always plan to give the punter a significantly better chance than they would have of winning the Lotto jackpot, (currently 14,000,000 to 1).

“‘We believe this legal completion could offer Dream Home Competition Ltd, the person selling their house and the competition winner a fantastic deal and, if successful, could offer a WIN-WIN….WIN situation!” Jon Sammon

In summary, Dream Home Competition Ltd. is an Estate Agent type house-sale-competition selling ‘Dream’ homes on a web site. By buying a ticket and using your skill and judgement to enter the competition any one could win a ‘Dream’ home!

Dream Home Competition, the new beginning!

Dreamhomecompetition.co.uk was established to provide a new, innovative and exciting method for property owners to sell, and home hunters to buy, in an increasingly challenging market.

The idea behind the website is that entrants can win a home as a prize in a skill based competition where they have to correctly answer questions and pay for a ticket before being entered into a draw.

After developing the initial idea we appointed an expert legal team to tick all the boxes within The Gambling Act and to ensure that our competitions are both completely legitimate and authentic.

Where are we now?

After initially launching the website with one property, it immediately captured the imagination as the nation paused to consider how the competition could completely transform their lives.  What would happen if they won a property?  Would they live in it mortgage free, rent it out and enjoy the income or cash in and sell it?

Within days of the first competition going live we were being inundated with enquiries from other property owners that wanted to beat the recession and run similar competitions using their properties.

As a result of this demand we have continued developing the website and now offer a platform where vendors can realise the true value of properties.  Even if the minimum ticket sales level isn’t reached vendors still receive a generous fee and one successful entrant will win a fantastic cash prize.

What does the future hold?

Moving forward we want to continue expanding this successful formula and we can now fast-track properties onto the website, in the same way that a traditional estate agent can start marketing homes almost immediately, by offering everything from ready written contracts through to specialist advice.

We are also looking at how charities could benefit from our success.  We already have a provision in place on our current competitions where up to £40,000 could be donated to good causes, depending on ticket sales, and soon we are planning to develop a platform where a good cause receives a payment every single time a ticket sells.

Further down the line we then want to look at the possibility of offering a wide range of other life changing prizes such as sports cars, luxury holidays or even speed boats!

So be sure to add www.dreamhomecompetition.co.uk to your ‘favourites’ and you could soon be enjoying a fantastic new lifestyle!

Please give us your views about our website!

Dream Home Competition Ltd

What our first Winner thought!

Having driven past the Horsforth ‘dream home’ every day on my way to work, I felt compelled to enter.  It was easy to do on line and the competition straight forward, and for the bargain ticket price, a good deal all round!  So I purchased my ticket and I then kept telling people that the house was mine! – for some reason I had good vibes.  However, when I had the call from the competition organiser to say I’d won I couldn’t believe it and was massively excited – champagne was also involved!  And then I began to wonder if I’d imagined it… but sure enough the cheque arrived (I didn’t actually win the house as not enough people had entered the competition, but the money was a very nice second!) and I then had a think about what to spend it on.  Not too hard to do!

I plumped for a few sensible things (e.g. paying off the credit card), but then also decided to use it to pay for a holiday.  We went to Australia and New Zealand over Christmas and new year – something I could never have afforded previously – and had a fantastic (and warm!) time.  So I would like to thank the competition very very much, and I would whole-heartedly recommend entering to anyone considering it.  I didn’t believe it was possible to win, but I have been proved completely wrong!

Thanks Dream Home Competition!

Liz Graham

Why did our first customers chose Dream Home Competition

‘West View Cottage, has been my ‘baby’ for 10 years; I bought it as the ‘ugly bungalow’ and during the first five years of owning as a single woman and whilst working full time I developed the Cambridgeshire cottage and my DIY skills, and had a tool box any tradesman would be proud of!

In 2005 I met my husband and moved to Berkshire, but just couldn’t let my ‘baby’ go. It had blossomed into a great party house and although I loved to have friends and family to stay, it was too big really for just the two of us. Letting it as a holiday cottage to celebratory groups just seemed an extension to this great party house and it allowed us to keep it and also still use it for our happy gatherings, it seemed to be the answer, and it was!

As the business developed and became successful, in tandem, my life in Berkshire also became settled. Then in June 2009, after nearly 3 years of ‘the process’, we adopted two beautiful toddlers, Claire and James, and they rapidly took over as my ‘babies’! With the two little ones it became increasing difficult to make the 2 hour journey up to Cambridge and keep the cottage up to date and well maintained. Unfortunately, this realisation coincided with a recession and large drops in house prices and it felt as if selling then would make all the personal hard work and financial strain of renovating it and developing it as a business, be for nothing. Then one late and sleepless night searching the Internet for ideas, I came across the Dream Home Competition….and the rest is history!’

We feel dream Home Competition has a real and affective way of selling homes. And decided we would like to give them the opportunity to sell our home for us. The whole process is very easy and hopefully if the more people who come on the site and buy tickets ,the quicker I’ll be able to sell my home.

Thanks

Jane Powell