A property raffle website has exceeded its crowdfunding target – and is now overfunding on Seedrs.

Raffle House runs competitions to give people a chance to win “extremely desirable properties” by purchasing £5 raffle tickets.

If they answer a question correctly, they are then entered into a prize draw to win a property in the price range of £350,000 to £650,000.

The London-based company launched the crowdfunding campaign to raise at least £200,000, and has now exceeded that target by 26% at the time of writing.

It has so far raised just over £252,000 from 271 investors and claims to have a pre-raise valuation of almost £1.8m.

The company said: “The investment we are seeking will be solely used to fund the advertising expense required for the first competition, generating sufficient funds, net of all transactional costs, to enable the business to be financially self-sufficient in the future.

“The initial primary marketing resource that we will use will be Facebook, though we have plans to expand into other affiliate marketing channels over time.”

Raffle House was launched in April by founder and CEO Benno Spencer, who recognised that owning a home is “out of reach for so many”.

The first home being showcased on the website is Spencer’s own property, which the start-up plans to award in November if enough tickets are sold.

The company said it hopes to list its second property in early 2019 and has engaged – but yet signed with – a prospective seller.

Earlier this year the Gambling Commission announced that it had intervened in almost a dozen cases where homeowners were attempting to raffle their houses.

The body, which regulates commercial gambling, warned that there appeared to have been a resurgence in the popularity of such schemes.

It confirmed at the time that 11 people were contacted between October1  andthe  end of December 2017 to be warned about the schemes they were running.