Live the dream: five-bedroom New England-style Thames house up for grabs if contestants win £25-game of spot the ball
A five-bedroom £3.5 million home on the banks of the River Thames could be yours for just £25, if you win a game of spot the ball.
Helen and Gary Weller, who designed and built Reve House in Caversham, Reading, came up with the scheme after struggling to sell the luxurious multi-million pound home.
The house is in Reading’s most exclusive street, which follows the course of the Thames and is home to dozens of multi-million pound riverside properties.
It is across the river from the Reading Festival site and every year residents hire private security staff to keep revellers at bay.
The house comes with a private mooring, 3D cinema and a formal dining room, complete with electroplated magnetic glass-fronted concealed wine cellar.
The master bedroom features a dressing room, en suite bathroom and private balcony and one of the guest bedrooms even includes a walk in wardrobe.
There is underfloor heating and a wireless Sonos sound system throughout the house.
“It’s about giving someone who would never be able to afford a house like this a chance to own it,” Mrs Weller told Get Reading.
"The people who enthusiastically said they loved the house were delivery drivers, postmen, cab drivers and our cat sitter friends, all who said if I won the lottery I would buy your house, and so the seed of this idea started.
Are property raffles legal?
- If not run correctly, property raffles can land sellers in trouble with the law
- The Gambling Commission oversees competitions that could be classed as property raffles
- It is legal to run a competition for profit so long as there is an element of skill for participants
- This is why property raffles often require entrants to answer a question
- Many rafflers have run into difficulties with the Commission if the question is deemed too easy to answer
- Raffle entrants should also be wary of scams
- Most schemes state that if not all tickets are sold, the winner will receive the cash raised from sold tickets minus ‘expenses’ (which can be a significant percentage of the profit)
"We decided that we wanted to give people a chance to own it for a manageable sum and so decided to hold a competition with our house as the prize.”
For a £25 entrance fee, players can go online and determine where the centre of a computer-generated ball should be.
A panel of judges will then pinpoint the centre of the ball, and the closest entrant will secure the stunning home in The Warren.
Mrs Weller has promised to hand the keys to the winner, provided there are at least 200,000 entrants.
If the competition does not attract 200,000 entries, then the winner will receive 75 per cent of the competition earnings. In total, there are 500,000 tickets available.
The competition, which is already open to entries, will run for six months and is due to finish March 14, 2018.
There have been several other raffles and competitions held by people who have been unable to sell their homes this year.
An £845,000 Georgian manor house in Lancashire was won by Warrington finance worker Marie Segar, after she bought just £40-worth of £2 raffle tickets.
A woman in Blackheath is also raffling her £1.25 million home after struggling to pay the mortgage. Greenwich council halted the raffle briefly when they feared it may breach Gambling Commission rules but it has since been reinstated.
A £1 million Knightsbridge flat is also up for grabs in a £5-a-ticket raffle and a hatmaker is selling her four-bedroom cottage near Bristol, which has been on the market for a year through a £2-a-ticket raffle.