Mr. Sweepy's Forums

This is technically a contest - not a sweepstakes.  The house is listed for 316,000 dollars.  Its a nice three bedroom on 2.5 acres.  Its yours for the winning entry themed,"The Greatness of America" in any style, memoir, short story or essay.  Its not how well you write but the feeling behind it say Amy and Ross Wainwright, the couple giving away their house.  And of course, you have to buy a raffle ticket for a hundred dollars.  This last is why its a contest not a sweepstakes..

There was an article in the newspaper that serves northern NM. Since I first saw news of this contest, I've seen it elsewhere. Ebay, Preservation Magazine, here - http://www.oldhouses.com/cf/displaylisting.cfm?q_listingid=4098 and in their blog. If you go to the blog their is a link to the listing and there, a virtual tour.  If you ever wanted to live in the Land of Enchantment, or your doctor told you to seek dryer climates for athritis or other ailments, here's your chance.

Unlike some states, its legal here in NM to hold a raffle for a house.  Its a great solution for a depressed real estate market.  If homesellers who go this route don't make the money they want, more often then not, the money is returned and the house officially put back on the market in ernest. These two are choosing a few winning entries then showing it to three friends. They are getting a notary involved as well. The house has a legitamate MLS number and I'm sure if you called the real estate company they could likely confirm that there is, indeed, a contest going on.

Keep in mind if you win, you'll want to sell right away - to pay for taxes or - if like me- you fall in love with the house and want to stay, you'll likely have to take out a small mortgage of about 90,000 or a bit more (I would have the house reassessed - and see if you can have the deed signed over after January first so you have a year).  For us, that would be about 800 a month mortgage - which comes out to less then our rent. Some could rent and then retire there in a decade or so.

This is the time to have your own home that is self contained, this could easily be off the grid - plenty of wind and sunlight (many new mexicans "buy the wind - from the power company  - and get money BACK from the power company) and there are 2 pellet stoves, 1 woodburning and a fireplace, and plenty of space for a garden or a greenhouse. Everything you'd want in a shaky economy.  You can go to work at home for DirectTV, JetBlue or Hilton or any of many employers hiring telecommuters.

With that kind of asset, a mortgage will be easier to come by, you could even, conceivably, take out enough to pay for bills. Although I wouldn't, I owe eight thousand in school loans.. Check it out. I'm going to work for the Census bureau for a few weeks just to do this...the bureau hires for one to two week assignments according to their recorded line.  I won't tell my husband until I win as he's a pessimist about everything.  OF course I win in my fantasy! 

I love the fantasy part.  I have two lottery - Big GAme and Hot Lotto that I bought like a week and a half ago and haven't yet checked.  Until I check, I could still be the winner potentially.  Of all or part. I don't watch it on the news so don't know if its started from zero again.  I get a few weeks of fantasy out of it!

And I could win, but the odds are minimal. But until I check...the chance is still there...

I like being frugal - I just found the very last true Dollar store and love it! I like using coupons and we don't drink or smoke or dine out (rarely) or go to movies or shows....I no longer get my makeup and hair done.  And since my pregnancy, I haven't been able to fit into most of my shoes and still haven't gone shoe shopping if you can believe it - ocassionally I like spending money on something I want. Right now, I'm saving for the fantasy. The rest of my salary for those few weeks can go to Christmas presents and study materials for my national exam!

So check it out, and whatever you decide - good luck.

Have a fortuitous day.

Amy (not the amy running the contest)

 Best luck to you Amy and its cool you're sharing.  I've seen several house raffles in a different state.  Yes I'm sorry to say one was a scam but the rest had very happy and excited winners and rafflers both.  I'm guessing there are a limited number of raffle tickets involved so your odds may be better than you think!  As for the frugal thing, and ill-fitting shoes,  girl where is your head?!  Even rinky dink towns have a local thrift shop of some kind thats run by a charity and I've never met a thrift shop I didn't like!  I haven't bought clothes off the rack in probably 15 years.  It may be you're fastidious and I can respect that but you'd be surprised at the stuff you can find that still has tags, shoes that have unscuffed stickers, brand new good stuff.  (ok there's crap too but that that makes the hunt more interesting!)  Find some shoes.  You've got too much goin on to be living in sore fett.  Good luck!

Has anyone here ever won a house?

 A house or rv

I won a fully furnished (there was stuff everywhere) luxury custom home.  I won it in Feb. 2007.  The picture in my profile is of the awarding of the money raised by the contest to the charities.  That's Dirk standing behind us (I know it is hard to see the picture).  It was pretty cool to see Dirk shake my 4 year old's hand.  He is soo tall. 

 Did you keep the home or sell it?  If you kept it have to take out a small mortgage to pay for the taxes?  This home, I think the taxes would be about 100,000 so a mortgage would have to be taken out.  I'll check out the picture - love that it was one of those raffles where they donate to charities, most states require this...

Had to borrow money to pay the 25% withholding taxes to get the house and then pay the rest of the taxes at tax time.  The house was about 30 miles away from our house, so we lived there for a couple months and then had family stay with us and party durning a 3 day weekend.  We then cleaned up the house and put it on the market the next week.  The higher property taxes and utilities would have costed us about $1k extra a month than what we currently had.  We could have afforded it, but it is much better to be debt free and have fun in life than just have a really nice house that things can happen to and be stressfull worrying about.  I was really attached to the house and it was a hard decision.  We already had a nice enough house in a great area, so it made it a little easier to decide.  I still miss the media room and heated pool and hot tub, though.  We kept most of the furniture and gave away everything we didn't need to friends and family who all live in our old home town.  It worked out that what we gave to everyone is exactly something they needed and nobody complained that they wished they got something else.  It is a lot of fun when we visit them and see the furniture we gave them and see how much they like it.  Something that I enjoyed thinking about was that I could look at one thing and think that would be a good prize to win in a sweepstakes.  There were hundreds of things that came with the house so it was like winning a house and hundreds of other prizes too.  The only thing now that could top it is winning the lottery.  I still really enjoy winning things in the sweeps that I enter now, though.  After life has gotten back to normal, I looked back at the initial rush of winning something and looked for free things to enter for fun and eventually found Mr. Sweepy to be the best system to find and enter sweeps that I trusted. 

 Great story about what led you to this.  This house in NM is worth about 316,000 so the initial tax would about 100,000 making our monthly payment about the same or less then our rent and the house taxes they said are 1000 or less.  Sounds pretty doable.  I was thinking if we won we'd ask to take  possession of the house in the new year so we'd have a year to decide!  I think the reason people hold raffles when its legal not to be a non profit is because of the market.  So with that in mind, we''d also have the house reassesed too to see if its worth the same amount in this market.  We also might get a break because it has a lot of alternative energy sources, pellet stoves and solar panels - and its an historic home.

 I really love that you shared your furntiture and stuff - it shows what kind of people you are as you could of sold it for money.  Where did you win the home through - was there a website and if so - is it still up?

There were a lot of headaches with the house.  Had many things to be fixed after the buyers had an inspection done, as an example.  But once it is done, you forget all the stressfull things.  There was about 1 in 5,000 chance to win and I bought 14 tickets.  I bought 10 one time and then 4 a few months later.  I could easily afford the tickets, but I wouldn't suggest others to spend that much.  I rarely buy lottery tickets and I don't really have any hobbies, so that was my justification.  The other 3 finalists all bought two tickets apiece.  There were 5 total prizes possible in the contest.  The website was taken down a long time ago but the website for the giveaway in Houston is still up.  Our house was much nicer looking than the Houston house.  http://www.allstarmiraclehome.com/houston/  

The money rasied was divided equally to Childrens Hospital, Cook's Childrens, and the Mavs Foundation.

 Great charities.  A lot of headaches!  I think in the case of this home, they are doing a raffle as a creative way of selling there home in a depressed market so those buyers in the essay contest better be sure they want it!  Looks like the home was built for the raffle  - there were still repairs to be made?

 

It was built for the raffle.  They rushed building it and had a long list of stuff that had to be fixed.  It was mostly simple things.  In those two months I called the warranty people a bunch, also.  One of the A/C's went out, the hot water in one of the bathrooms stopped working, the porch lights stopped working, the skimmer on the pool was installed wrong.  That was some of the things that went wrong in addition to all the stuff on the inspection.  Also, selling a house that you won brings all the wacko's out.  One guy that was going to buy it was wanted by the FBI and disappeared.  His earnest money check obviously bounced. 

 on.  Also, selling a house that you won brings all the wacko's out.  One guy that was going to buy it was wanted by the FBI and disappeared.  His earnest money check obviously bounced.

 

Wierdness!  Yep I often wonder if houses in forclosure are all from people who couldn't pay or if some had bad guys living in it, drug dealers and such. 

lrush573:

 Best luck to you Amy and its cool you're sharing.  I've seen several house raffles in a different state.  Yes I'm sorry to say one was a scam but the rest had very happy and excited winners and rafflers both.  I'm guessing there are a limited number of raffle tickets involved so your odds may be better than you think!  As for the frugal thing, and ill-fitting shoes,  girl where is your head?!  Even rinky dink towns have a local thrift shop of some kind thats run by a charity and I've never met a thrift shop I didn't like!  I haven't bought clothes off the rack in probably 15 years.  It may be you're fastidious and I can respect that but you'd be surprised at the stuff you can find that still has tags, shoes that have unscuffed stickers, brand new good stuff.  (ok there's crap too but that that makes the hunt more interesting!)  Find some shoes.  You've got too much goin on to be living in sore fett.  Good luck!

 

 

Problem is I hat shoe shopping for shoes now, I never find anything that fits.  Always too small in the width - even when they're large in the length.  So basically I'm going to have to spend a  bit more and go to a specialty shop.

 I thought I mentioned thrift shops - I love them - and always talk about them in discussion.  I can also get my hair done at a cosmetology school for a lot less (I prefer long hair and even a trim can be expensive) and I've considered treating myself to get my hair coloured at an ayerveydic (all natural) school...but I found out it takes three hours.  Like going from thrift shop to thrift shop and checking out rack room shoes and walmart and not finding anything that fits, I just put it off. 

 As for the Essay contest - not technically a raffle as the gaming commission would shout it down - they need at least 2800 entrants into the contest or they send allt he money back - less postage.  A couple in White Rock paved the way as the Gaming Commission looked into their unique way of sellig their home by essay contest.Given the amount of press its had in newspapers and online I'm betting its legitamate - the thing I worry about is getting enough entrants to give me a fighting chance.  So i'm not so much worried about the same  odds - like other contests where you wish less people would enter but more people entereing is what I'm crossing my fingers for.  I'll find out the 26th of December.

 Thanks for your input!