A new portal has set up in opposition to estate agents to provide home-owners with a platform to raffle their properties.
WinAbode has been launched by chartered surveyor Richard Blaiberg and project manager Sam Park, with the first raffle being a three-bedroom home in east London valued at £700,000.
Entrants can buy a maximum of 150 raffle tickets for £2 and must answer a question correctly to be entered into a prize draw.
A cash prize will be offered if the value of the property is not met by ticket sales.
The platform says Stamp Duty will also be covered.
WinAbode makes estate agency fees look like a bargain as it takes 5% plus VAT. The founders admit this is high but claim they aim to make more on the property than vendors would get through an estate agent.
Each listing is checked by the platform and will include property descriptions, photographs and any leasehold information, but the eventual winner won’t be able to have a survey of the property before claiming the prize.
Park told EYE: “Our solicitors carry out searches for each property and review the management pack, the lease and insurance documents where applicable. If there are any major works planned we won’t offer the property as a prize.
“Because there could be hundreds of thousands of entrants for each prize, we feel that it could be overly intrusive to carry out surveys before the property is won. We do however fully inspect the property ourselves, much like a conventional estate agent would.
“In relation to the ground rent, service charge and council tax, we will be adding these to the main page soon. The energy performance certificate won’t be available online but will be sent to the winner and their solicitor, as per standard property transactions.”
There is no requirement for the platform to be part of a redress scheme but Park said because it is running prize competitions it must comply with the Advertising Standards Authority.
This is the latest in what looks like a growing trend for property raffles.
In one of the current attempts, a seller in Woolwich has told her local newspaper that she was tired of dealing with estate agents so is instead holding a raffle to sell her £285,000 two-bedroom property in Royal Arsenal at £2 a ticket.
The vendor, known only as Miss Page, has set up a snazzy website with floorplans and a quiz that entrants have to complete to be in the draw.
But while she says the property is worth £285,000, her expectations seem to be much higher.
The terms and conditions on the website shows the maximum number of entries are 500,000, so at £2 each that would value the home at £1m.
The website then goes on to say the competition can be extended by six months at their discretion, plus if insufficient funds are raised, the seller reserves the right to just provide a cash prize, from which they will take a 5% fee.
This begs the question as to whether these sellers are more concerned about selling their property for the right price or just making money.
Another couple in Northamptonshire, Kirstie and Matthew Searle, are more ambitious. They are trying to raffle their £300,000 home for £2 a ticket but will only sell if 500,000 are sold.
Sellers should beware though as the couple concerned have admitted the decision had caused a marital dispute, with Matthew preferring the traditional estate agent route. He told the Daily Mirror he stopped talking to his wife for a week when told she was raffling it.
They have at least said they will donate £10,000 of the proceeds to charity.
Wot? No purple stories on PIE this morning? What on earth will the dom and ducky duo do with themselves if there is nothing for them to get steamed up about?
I know!
Putting your home up for sale in a raffle for a 5% commission payment is about as clever as instructing Purplebricks to list it for an upfront fee. Discuss.
There now. Bait set. Just need to wait for them to troll along any time soon.
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Nope. A quiet Purple day AgencyInsider.
Sadly you and all the other PB knockers will have to comment on real things that affect our industry.
…oh actually, no you won’t. You’ll all just wait for the next PB article.
Having a partner who works for them I have a very good insight into how they work. The misinformation and misconceptions that are posted on here are fascinating (and quite amusing) to read. I run a successful high street office. Am I really the only agent out there who doesn’t see anything wrong with a different company offering another option/model in the same industry.
How about discussing the fact that our industry is far from honest and transparent with OUR fees.
Our industry constantly criticize the hybrid/online model who generally do state their fees but we don’t dare mention ours in any adverts. If anyone calls my office asking what I charge I tell them. We charge 1.2% across the board. We don’t negotiate and we don’t do different fees for different clients. That is as unfair and dishonest as you can be. Call my office and I’ll tell you my fee straight off. Call most of your offices and your fee discussion avoidance training kicks in. You just can’t bring yourselves to give an honest answer.
Once on the valuation most of you out there will get whatever fee you can. If it’s an old dear who doesn’t know better and doesn’t negotiate you’ll charge her 1.5%. If it’s a hard negotiating 30 something guy you’ll drop. THAT is a bigger issue than all the gripes and groans about Purple bricks and all the other online agents. Our industry is NOT honest, fair and transparent with our fees.
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I think you’ll find I am not actually a PB ‘knocker’ as you characterise it and I have been on this site for an awful lot longer than you – or the dom and duck duo.
I accept that having a partner in PB you have an interesting perspective of both sides of the coin – BTW are they an LPE?
If you can successfully operate a one-size fits all no sale no fee model good luck to you. I prefer to go for the right fee for the job and for the client’s best interest.
I don’t think many people have an issue with other options/models in the market. That is good for consumer choice. But many of us do have serious issues with the operators who willfully mislead those consumers.
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PJ
Interesting concept, so if you sell a 1 million pound house you will charge 1.2% and if you sell a parcel of land for £20,000 you will also charge 1.2%. I personally sell a lot of property below £100,000 and using your model, I would frankly not make much of a profit.
With regards to PB, I don’t think many mind the idea of a online agent and it has no doubt improved the quality of agency over the past couple of years. Where the issue is, is the marketing from these on liners who have frankly been making up facts and figures (and reviews) to deliberately mislead the public. This has caused bad feelings and a negative response from estate agents.
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Is an NVQ in public service, 3 months industry experience and a two week training course enough experience to be regarded as an expert estate agent just like your partner. Looking in from outside that is what Purplebrick are promoting to the public.
Is looking up an estimate of value on the internet exercising an agent’s duty of care and skill?
Is whacking a property on the internet and doing nothing at all for 10 months acting in the interest of a client?
Is 2379 3000.
Is decreasing and increasing the price of a property to bump it to the top of Rightmove compliant with CPR
If the readers of eye don’t have the same emotional attacment or loyalty to a commission only negotiator isn’t it only reasonable we are allowed to comment on things that not only affect consumers and investors but also affect the decent agents who have joined Purplebricks. Head office making exaggerated claims and reps having obviously false reviews are working against the decent people who do a good job.
What I can’t work out is why your partner isn’t working for you; offering a cheap internet listing service and undercutting Purplebricks Emoov, Housesimple etc
We have a stormingly good agent around here, she doesn’t have an office and offers a proper hybrid agency service. She is a respected member of the industry who wins good instructions at fees better than most of her officed competitors. Online agency doesn’t have to be about loss leader fees.
You will know how much she takes from every listing and will be aware how much she is contributing to head office for every instruction she wins. Wouldn’t that cash be better of in your pocket rather than theirs?
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In your usual fashion.
A well thought out comment, like a knife through butter!!
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PJ
I am interested by your comments.
Other than earning money what satisfaction does your partner get from appraising a house and just putting it online as a listing? Doesn’t he want to be involved with the local selling of the property, telling people he has met on previous viewings about it, encouraging people to go and view, trying to negotiate the highest price possible and then following through the sale, dealing with all the little niggles on the way, to completion?
Doesn’t he want to get involved with all the things you do? Doesn’t he believe he could deliver a better service and achieve a higher sale price for the vendor by doing so? Doesn’t he want to help people from start to finish?
By the way….what is the average sale price of the properties you sell?
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Oh please, somebody give this agent a job on our patch…please
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I will leave all this out there for each to draw their own conclusions. I know what I think……
1…Is there a contradiction in terms here?
What WinAdobe say in the TimeOut article this week:
There are 400,000 tickets up for grabs, and to enter you have to answer a fairly simple London trivia question, which legally makes the whole thing an above-board ‘skills-based prize competition’ rather than a lottery.
2…Here’s a copy of the trivia question from WinAdobe’s competition.
“Answer the Question Below:
Which landmark is closest to Dalston Junction? Buckingham Palace…or Tower Bridge or Canary Wharf”
3…OK, so we have established this is Trivia Based…
4…However, here’s more information from excerpts in a Daily Telegraph article on WinAdobe earlier this week:
The Gambling Commission has highlighted how those who flout strict betting rules to try to raise hundreds of thousand of pounds by offering their home as a prize could face 51 weeks in jail and a fine of up to £5,000.
Excerpts below from The Daily Telegraph article on WinAdobe this week
WinAbode must also offer people the chance to enter the competition for free by post in order for it not to be a lottery, and a form is available on its website to fill in. Because lotteries, tombolas and raffles are based entirely on luck they can be held only to raise money for charity.
Online and postal tickets are then entered into a randomly selected prize draw which takes place seven days after the close of the competition. If the minimum number of tickets to cover the value of a seller’s home is not reached, a cash prize will be offered instead.
But strict gambling rules mean sellers need to tread carefully. A seller from Blackheath launched an online raffle in May, offering tickets for £5 each. The stated aim was to sell 750,000 tickets, netting her £3.75 million. But the raffle was later halted after advice from the homeowner’s local council, Greenwich, over “potential” breaches of Gambling Commission rules.
Is it a prize draw or a lottery?
The Gambling Commission makes a clear distinction between a prize draw and a lottery. Lotteries can only be run for good causes, while prize draws can be run for personal gain.
The Gambling Commission said: “Unlike a lottery where the outcome depends on chance, the outcome of a genuine prize competition must depend on the exercise of skill, knowledge, or judgment by the participant.”
The skill test, which on a raffle is usually a question, must prevent a “significant proportion” of people taking part or from getting the correct answer.
Prize draws can be classed as a “free draw” if either all the entries are free, or if some are paid and some are free. However, the free route must be “no more expensive or no less convenient than the paid route”. Thus, standard post must be used, not special delivery.
The commission does not approve prize draws, so “strongly advises” seeking advice if you are unsure of complying with the regulations.
5. Over and out, I hope this sheds a bit more light on issues which are heavily regulated:
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It’s laughable that some people think they can raise a much higher sum for their property through this raffle malarkey.
Yes, the idea of winning a high value prize for such a small outlay has an appeal, but in the real world winning a property that you probably can’t actually afford to run/keep is just fraught with problems. Your new asset could quickly become the mother of all liabilities!
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Is it any more laughable than a vendor sticking their property on the internet for £700,000 with a commission only negotiator and sitting there 10 months slowly reducing and reducing the price until it sells? I’ve found an example where a vendor is doing just that and has so far dropped £200,000. Every 2 weeks pulling another £10k off the price like one of those reverse auctions on the shopping channel.
Let’s assume a purchaser has an interest in a property that’s being sold like that, waiting another month will see another £20k off the price, who’s going to rush to offer on a property marketed in such an expert way?
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Ducky’s house has been on the market for around 10 months and I think it was around that price as well…..!
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It isn’t his property. He has a quite reasonable reduction in asking price compared with this particular £200,000 reduction on £700,000. According to what he posted he’s on his 2nd prospective purchaser where this example has had nothing.
It is massively tempting to play the game down at their level, letting on what I know and making it personal as they have attempted but none of that adds anything to the discussion. It wouldn’t make me any more right in the same was it doesn’t make them less wrong.
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I do agree…..
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I agree Robert. You only have to talk to buyers on a regular basis to know that putting a house on the market at too high a price and then gradually reducing it over time is ‘Death By A Thousand Cuts’. It is a terrible, terrible way of selling a property and trying to achieve a good sale price.
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