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!
