KC house that was offered as HGTV prize sells for $725K. Here's what happened

Yahoo

2 days ago

The winner of the 2024 sweepstakes for 'HGTV Urban Oasis' will not go home to Waldo after all, despite a home there being offered as the grand prize. The reason is a secret second prize option hidden in the rules of the giveaway.
Instead, a buyer closed on the Kansas City house for $725,000 on Tuesday, according to Sarah Legg, the real estate agent for the property. The house received seven offers after it was listed in late April, Legg said.
In 2023, Legg said she showed the TV production staff four or five houses. HGTV chose this house because 'they wanted something that was close to amenities, kind of in the urban core. They wanted walkability.'
The home design cable network bought the house to remodel and give to a lucky viewer. A Memphis-based HGTV designer planned upgrades to the inside and outside, and a camera crew surprised the lucky winner, who already lived in the Kansas City area.
According to HGTV, this was the first local winner of their home giveaways, which since 2010 have taken place in cities including New York City, Chicago, Atlanta and Louisville.
After the reveal, the winner had a decision: She could take the house, furnishings, fixtures and art, which were valued altogether at almost $670,000, plus a $50,000 cash bonus. Or she couldtake the cash option.
This monetary option offered the winner a lump sum of $250,000 instead of the house, plus the $50,000 cash bonus. The Kansas City winner chose the latter, and the home went back on the market.
Finances might be why a sweepstakes winner would choose the cash option, Legg said.
'There are tax implications when you win a prize of that nature,' Legg said.
Winners must already have a lot of cash on hand to take the house in the sweepstakes, because they have to pay hundreds of thousands of dollars to the government by the time taxes are due.
This is because the house counts as income on taxes. With the Kansas City HGTV house, a single person would have to pay approximately $263,000 in income taxes on the house alone, even before income taxes on the cash prize and their own employment income, according to SmartAsset's income tax calculator.
In addition, the winner would have to find money for closing fees and property taxes, according to the sweepstakes rules.
For the cash option, the winner wouldn't have to front the taxes and the approximately $100,000 in income taxes would be deducted from the lump sum of $300,000, according to SmartAsset.
HGTV did not respond to requests for comment or answer how many of its sweepstakes winners chose the houses, but Legg said that it's '50/50 with the network on whether or not the winner actually keeps the home.'
With shuttlecock wallpaper in the laundry room and a jazz-themed music room, the house puts Kansas City in the center of the design.
Designer Carmeon Hamilton said in a September interview with The Star that the home was inspired by modern and Scandinavian design, along with the metro's character.
The royal blue cabinets in the kitchen were meant to echo fireplace tile, but 'once we realized how many sports teams in Kansas City were blue, we knew it would go over very well with the citizens in town,' Hamilton said.
The new owners will be less than a 10-minute walk from Kansas City Bier Company, Andy's and Fareway Meat Market.
The Star's Lisa Gutierrez contributed to this report.