Curbed Detroit is reporting that a Detroit woman planning to relocate to Germany is raffling off her house on Gilbert Street. Tickets are $100 and she hopes to sell 300.
Curbed: The winner will be given the home as a "gift" when the owner signs a quick [quitclaim] deed on site at the drawing. She requests two weeks to vacate the property but after that it will become the new owner's home "to do what ever their hearts chose to do with it!"
The local real estate market can be tough. More buyers than sellers, tight credit markets, the comps are lousy, appraisal comes back low...the whole thing is a hassle. Honestly, who knows what's good deal in this town? Maybe the neighborhood comes back and you're rich. Or maybe the city goes broke, shuts off your street lights, and stops picking up the trash.
So, there's a certain logic to this raffle thing. It's like the story about the kid and his dead mule.
After moving to the country, the kid buys a mule for $100. It promptly dies. The seller won't return his money so the kid holds a raffle--win a mule; tickets $2. He sells 500 tickets and nets a tidy profit. Amazed, the original seller asks the kid if he had any complaints when people learned the mule was already dead.
"Just one," the kid explains. The raffle winner was unhappy, but the kid returned the man's $2 and everyone was satisfied.
One hundred bucks for a one-in-300 shot at a free house? Beats the slots at Motor City. -- JTW
