Latest news with #NilKöksal
CBC
21-05-2025
- Business
- CBC
Somebody will get this Irish countryside house for $9, if all goes according to plan
Social Sharing Imelda Collins says she's figured out a way to sell her home for peanuts, while still turning a profit. Instead of putting her house near Sligo, Ireland, on the open market through a real estate agent, she's raffling it off to a lucky winner, with tickets priced at £5, or roughly $9.30 Cdn. "I just thought that was a cool idea," Collins told As It Happens host Nil Köksal. If all goes well, she sees it as a win-win for her and the new homeowner. "The dream winner would be somebody that can't afford a house, or somebody that is struggling to get on the property ladder, which I'm sure a lot of people are," she said. "If my raffle is successful, in the end, I would hope to make more money than had I sold it on the open market." How it works While raffling is an unconventional way of selling your home, Collins says it's become something of a trend in Britain. She got the idea after reading a news article about a woman in Dublin who raffled her apartment so she could live her dream of moving to Paris. Collins says she plans to use the proceeds of her raffle to move to Italy to be with her husband and his family. "Initially, my husband ... thought I was crazy, to be quite honest," she said. "I assured him I'd done all the research. I wasn't jumping into it." Collins is running the raffle through Raffall, a British company that primarily runs online charity raffles. "We didn't anticipate house raffles," Stelios Kounou, Raffall's chief executive and founder, told the New York Times. "We never imagined people would do that." The contest, which closes Thursday, is open to people anywhere in the world. The company requires a minimum sale of 150,000 tickets for someone to win the house. If Collins falls short of that, the winner gets 50 per cent of the ticket sales, Raffall takes its 10 per cent cut, and she keeps her home. Kounou says the platform has successfully raffled 18 houses so far, while another 50 people tried but failed to reach the ticket sales target. Only bidders are allowed to know how many tickets have been sold so far, says Collins. But she's not worried. "I am very, very, very near to my goal," she said. "I can divulge that." Is it legal? To ensure everything is on the up-and-up, Raffall classifies its raffles as "prize competitions," as opposed to lotteries, which cannot be run for commercial or private gain. Britain's Gambling Commission defines a prize competition as one in which "the outcome is determined by the participants' skill, judgment or knowledge." To adhere to those standards, Raffall includes an entry question to qualify for the draw. For Collins' raffle, the question is: "Which colour is associated with Ireland?" In Canada, the rules around raffling and contests vary by province. Provincial gambling authorities have, at times, investigated or shut down real estate raffles and other contests to win homes. In an article posted by U.K. law firm Home Property Law, lawyer Cordelia Grassby urges potential buyers to take precautions before buying a raffle ticket for a house, including making sure you can afford utilities and maintenance costs, asking about associated legal fees and taxes, and, if possible, visiting the property or having it surveyed. Collins says she's promised to take care of the stamp duty land tax and any legal fees associated with the purchase. The house, she says, has been recently renovated, and comes fully furnished. Collins says anyone would be lucky to win her house, which she lovingly calls "Butterfly Cottage." Nestled on 0.7 hectares (1.75 acres) of rolling green hills, Collins says the home is surrounded by nature. From her porch, she watches rabbits hopping through the grass. There's a swallow building a nest beneath her roof, and a robin who stops regularly to eat from her hands. "I've had some really special experiences with nature," she said. "And the winner will hopefully experience similar things to what I did, you know, if they love nature as much as I do." She says she's brought that love of nature inside, too, with bright colours and nature-themed wallpaper, curtains and bedding. "Ireland is well known for not having good weather. So my idea was even if it's raining outside, at least you're sitting inside in your beautiful living room and you're looking at the beautiful design and the wallpaper and it's bright and cheerful," she said. She admits just selling Butterfly Cottage through a real estate agent might have been easier. But she likes the novelty of the raffle, and is fond of the idea that someone will get a house for less than the price of a lunch. "It would be lovely for somebody who can't afford a home to win," she said.
CBC
09-04-2025
- Sport
- CBC
'Never give up': These baseball teams have both snapped a combined 141-game losing streak
Two of the longest losing streaks in college baseball history came to an end on Tuesday when Yeshiva University and Lehman College squared off in a thrilling doubleheader in Teaneck, N.J. Lehman College, a public institution in New York City's Bronx neighbourhood, had been stuck in a 42-game losing streak. The Lightning men's baseball team hadn't won a game since May 9, 2023, when they defeated New York's Baruch College. But in the first game of Tuesday's doubleheader, Lehman broke their streak with a hard-fought 7-6 extra-inning victory over Yeshiva. The second game took an equally dramatic turn. Yeshiva University, a private Orthodox Jewish school with four campuses across New York City, had been enduring an even more painful streak — 99 consecutive losses dating back to February 27, 2022. But in the nightcap, the Maccabees found their spark, emerging with a 9-5 victory to end their winless run. After a tense tie, the game went into extra innings, where a key hit-by-pitch in the eighth inning allowed Lehman to seal their victory. A standout performance came from Lehman pitcher Justin Chamorro, who threw a complete game, striking out a career-high 13 batters. He spoke to As It Happens host Nil Köksal about the win. Congratulations, Justin. How does it feel? Oh, it's an urgent sense of relief. I'm so happy. It's one win down. It was that hump that we needed to get over. I'm grateful. It was such a long time. How do you get through something like that game after game? A lot of grit, perseverance. It's difficult as a team because I'm not only speaking for myself, but after so many losses, your morale starts to go down. And it's like, "When is it gonna happen?" It's only a matter of time. And that matter of time so happened to be yesterday. What did you learn from all of those [previous losses] as a team to get you the win this time? Definitely situational hitting, being smart in different counts — like the hitters knowing what counts, knowing what to expect and executing those counts. And as well defensively, being more well meshed together, especially when it comes down to a certain place we'd like to run or different shifts in the defence. That definitely played a key role, meshing together after all those losses, we got to feel for each other. At what point during the game yesterday do you feel like, "OK, this might be it"? When we took the lead in the seventh, in the bottom of the seventh, and I knew I was going out there for one more inning. I was like, "I'm going to lock down this inning and we're going to secure this win for Lehman." I just knew it. I went in there confident no matter what, and I'm just grateful that my teammates had my back and picked me up. And the moment you realized that you did win, I saw a little bit of a video on Instagram, there was a little bit of strut there, understandably. But what were you feeling in those moments? I was feeling a sense of pride, you know, being a New York native coming from the Bronx. This school has seen a lot of obstacles and adversity. I don't know if you could make out, but I was just saying, "We're here, we're here." Because we're representing — I'm representing — this school. I'm representing everything that I've gone through, all the struggles that the program has gone through. We made it through. That was the daylight that we needed to see. Earlier this week I spoke with Dan Sarmiento [who] was at the game. He's a YouTuber, and he thought that part of the issue might have been funding. But you're on the team — what was getting in the way of a win before now? That is one of the biggest issues, actually. I feel like if we had the resources we needed, we would have definitely been competing at a much higher level. The support has also been an issue. I mean, be it that this school is more recognized for [its] basketball and athletics component, we don't really get that much shine and attention. A lot of [our] players are young. It's rebuilding. After the year we had last year, it was difficult. I would say funding, support, lack of equipment, lack of resources, really, because we're playing with our hands tied, doing what we can with what we have, so that's really it. Does this feel like a turning point? I think so. I know for me, I hope I demonstrated to my teammates that we can definitely do this together. I need each and every single one of them to invest it like we were [in] the first game. We're taking it a step at a time. I know coach [Chris] Delgado has invested so much of his time and he's really put everything he has into this program where opposed to before it wasn't that much invested into us. He's really made it his business to give us nutrition plans, workouts, practices, reps. I give him a lot of props. What did coach Delgado say after that win? Congratulations on your first win, and I told him the same. We just both smiled because it was a long journey for both of us, and him being that he just recently been named head coach. It's an accomplishment. What has the reaction been like on campus? I'm sure there was a lot of ribbing going on during your losing streak. Oh my gosh. I'm just glad to put a stop to the nonsense I was hearing around campus, all the negativity. The softball team was there supporting us, they were a very good support system yesterday and I'm so grateful for them. I've also gotten different players from different teams congratulating us and it feels different. There's gotta be life lessons in every one of those losses and yesterday's win. What has this all taught you? Truly, I could give you the most clichéest lesson: never give up. But it taught me that even in the face of adversity, it builds character. All those losses build character, and all it takes is that one win to show you that it was worth it. All the hard work was worth it, all the effort you put into it, all that concentration you put into it, it's all worth it in the end — even though this is just the beginning.
