PRESS RELEASE - COUPLE OFFER HALF MILLION POUND HOME FOR £25.00

On the third of February in the local newspaper The Sunderland Echo this
News story was published 

PRESS RELEASE COUPLE OFFER HALF MILLION POUND HOME FOR £25.00

 
INTERNET entrepreneurs Mike and Debbie Gamble are planning to beat the housing slump - by allowing Wotstheodds.com to offer their £500,000 home in an online prize draw. Wotstheodds.com are selling £25 tickets for the four-bedroom luxury house situated in west Herrington and the winner will have no stamp duty or property transfer fees to pay.

They will also get £15,000 in cash to help for removal expenses and redecorating along with their rates paid for a year.


Mike, 55, and Debbie, 40, came up with the idea as a way of maximising property value return, to the property owner, in the credit crunch. They hope to help other homeowners stuck with negative equity on their property in the same way with Wotstheodds.com
Mike said: “Hopefully it will work out as a business for us and we’ll help a lot of people along the way.
We’re trying it out with our house first. We didn’t want to ask a private individual to take their home off the market for three or six months – which is how long the prize draw could run – without proving it is a viable business first.”
Wotstheodds.com will give Five per cent of the overall ticket sales for each completed Prize draw shared equally between three nominated charities.

The Gambles came up with the venture, called WotstheOdds.com, after the family motor firm was wrecked in a fire in 2006.
Mike spent ten years buying and selling used cars before setting up a showroom and MOT centre in Northallerton North Yorkshire – only to see it literally go up in flames.
The family was struck by a further disaster when Mike contracted a mystery virus in 2007 and spent months in hospital.
Doctors told him he would not be
well enough to go back to his previous line of work. He is still unable to work fulltime.
  “I spent the time in hospital lying their thinking ‘what am I going to do?’ and coming up with ideas,” he said.
  


This is a Prize Draw requiring Judgement and Skill to answer questions and complete a tie break. It is not to be confused with a lottery, which relies purely on chance and would require a special license.
Entrants must demonstrate skill and judgement by answering a series of questions and completing a tie-breaker by
writing a short piece (no more than 300 words) on why they should get the house, the same must be done for all other Prizes.
Mike said the prize draw was also a good way of helping people get on the property ladder – though admits a young couple may rather sell the home if they won rather than pay the upkeep on a large property. Wotstheodds.com intend to offer more suitable first time buyer
properties in the future. He is hoping to work with property builders to offer new homes as well as homeowners who want to sell their properties in the difficult market.
Mike said there was a safety-feature built in, in the event that all tickets were not sold.
  
If tickets sales still did not reach the target, within the time required then WotstheOdds would add up the total raised and give away 60 per cent as a cash prize, with the rest going on costs, a share to the nominated charities and a pre agreed share for the property owner when they are offering other properties.
Estate agent
Thomas Watson, who is marketing the property and will organise the property transfer for the winner, said: “It’s an interesting idea and it might catch on as a new way of selling property, we’ll wait and see.”

WotstheOdds also has other prize draws on its website, including for a year’s worth of groceries, cars and mobile phones – each of which has its own ticket prices. “We want to expand and also offer more practical prizes” said Mike. 
 “Not everyone wants a luxury car – but they might need a first car for their son or daughter with about £2,500 insurance cost contribution thrown in.
 “We are offering for example a five-door 1litre Ford Fiesta with cash to cover the first year’s costs for £5 a ticket.”
  For more information, visit
www.wotstheodds.com.