Latest news with #Raffall
North Wales Live
16-07-2025
- Business
- North Wales Live
'Our £325k family home on Anglesey could be all yours for just £5'
An Anglesey couple have put their home in an online raffle where people could win their coastal retreat for a £5 stake. John and Jennie Bailey and their two children are looking to move from the two bedroom apartment in the seaside village of Rhoscolyn to a larger nearby bungalow to accommodate their growing family. But they've decided to try an unconventional way of selling the property - which is valued at £325,000. Rather than the usual approach of placing the home on the market they have teamed with Raffall, a UK-based company often used for property raffles. This has seen people given the opportunity to buy £5 raffle tickets to secure a chance to win the home. If the 150,000 ticket sales target is reached then one lucky winner will get the property. If the target is not reached by January 1 2026 then the draw is still held and the winner gets 50% of the pot. Jennie, 43, mum to Henry, 11, and Sebastian, nine, said it is a wonderful opportunity for someone to win a home in a dream location and they will be sad to leave the place. Join the North Wales Live Whatsapp community now She said: "As a family we have been coming to Rhoscolyn for 40 years, it was part of growing up and just where we came as my parents had another apartment in the same block here,where there are three homes. We then bought a flat for our family. "After Covid we found we were struggling to get down as often with work and family commitments and we decided as a family to move here from Stockport in Manchester in 2023. We have really settled, we already knew so many people and everyone has been so welcoming. We both mainly work from home so we could do this. "The children went to school at Ysgol Rhoscolyn and two years later are now fluent in Welsh, we are trying with our Welsh too. We love it here but while the apartment was fantastic for holidays it is too small now the children are growing up. Our eldest now wants his own room. We will be sad to leave and if it was just me and John we would be staying here." On picking this way to sell the house, Jennie, who works in home decor and helps manage a holiday property, added: 'I realise this is quite unorthodox, but that's what we love about it - imagine winning a home in the most idyllic place for a fiver - it's a life changing chance for someone!" She wants local businesses to get involved in the promotion as they can get a 75p cut in each raffle ticket sold with no cost to themselves. In total the couple need to sell 150,000 tickets for the sale to go through. This would raise a total of £750,000 but Jennie that is not what they would receive. She said: "There are a lot of costs to pay, we will do the stamp duty, potentially for a second home purchase, and the legal costs, Raffall get 10% and then we have significant marketing costs for all of this. Also when we have affiliates selling tickets they get that 75p cut per ticket. "There is a lot of marketing needed to get the sales and we have to be careful not to overspend or this could end up costing us. We started this two weeks ago and so far we have had 4,500 sales." She added: "This really is a once in a lifetime chance for people to live or holiday in a magical place by the sea. "We're only moving round the corner as we love it so much in Rhoscolyn, so we can't wait to see our home enjoyed by a new family and for them to build their own memories here.' On the property, Raffall said: "The two bedroomed coastal haven, worth £325,000 is the definition of modern elegance with an open-plan kitchen and dining area ideal for entertaining and the stylish dining-living space a perfect place to relax. "The property also features a family bathroom, downstairs WC, balcony, private garage and shared garden. Properties in Rhoscolyn are few and far between with the competition offering a rare opportunity for someone to get on the property ladder in this sought after location which has a population of just 542 residents." Property raffles like have become more common in the UK in recent years although don't end with the home changing hands at the end due to the ticket sales target not being met.
Extra.ie
28-06-2025
- Entertainment
- Extra.ie
American woman wins dream cottage in Ireland
For one 29-year-old Irish-American woman, it was definitely the luck of the Irish when she won a traditional stone cottage for the price of a $12 raffle ticket. Marine Corps officer Kathleen Spangler bought three tickets for the draw and then promptly forgot about them, so she was amazed to get a message out of the blue asking, 'By chance did you win a cottage in Ireland?' The picture postcard house, surrounded by wildflowers, was raffled by owner Imelda Collins who was moving to Italy and Kathleen bought the tickets on a whim last December after seeing a post announcing the chance to win the cottage and 1.75 acres of land in County Leitrim. Imelda Collins outside the cottage in Co Leitrim. Pic: Raffall It was a busy year for the mom of three as just two months earlier she had applied for Irish citizenship through lineage on her father's side. Then in February she and husband Michael, also a Marine officer, transferred stations from North Carolina to Dayton Ohio and were preparing for graduate studies, so she never thought of the tickets. 'I completely forgot about it' Kathleen told the New York Times. 'Nobody enters these things really thinking that they're going to win. But there's always a chance, and that's the fun part.' Carrick-on-Shannon – Pic: Getty Images Then last month she got a text from a friend asking if she had won a cottage in Leitrim. His friend had just read an article about the cottage and noticed that the organisers had announced the winner as a Kathleen Spangler. And I said: 'I don't think so but let me check.' Kathleen was flabbergasted when she realised she had won and immediately called her husband who was in a math's class, telling him the amazing news that she had just won a house in Ireland. She told him more about the raffle, but he thought it was a scam, until Kathleen received an email from Imelda Collins, and then they realised it was true. 'It was a great experience to be able to speak directly to her and helped to make it real.' Winning a cottage in Ireland represents something of a homecoming for Kathleen as her grandmother had emigrated from Mayo to the United States, while her great grandfather's family hailed from Sligo, about 12 miles from the cottage. Beautiful summer day at long and sandy Strandhill beach, Sligo bay. With a newborn and two toddlers the Spanglers are now sorting out the legal paperwork. 'My husband and I have talked about someday, where we are out of the military, getting priority overseas and splitting time between there and the United States', she told the New York Times. 'But that was obviously a future goal.'
Irish Times
22-06-2025
- Business
- Irish Times
House raffles are a big, beautiful, awful sign of the times
'There are days I am still in disbelief that it happened and it actually happened to me. I don't want to say I believe in miracles, but I always try and give it a go to see what happens. I'm over the moon,' delighted homeowner Imelda Collins told The New York Times this week. The miracle she had experienced was not, although you might be forgiven for making the assumption in this broken housing market of ours, managing to buy a house , but succeeding in selling one. Collins's joy becomes a bit easier to understand when you see the figures involved. A two-bedroom cottage on 1.75 acres in Leitrim which she bought three years ago for €133,000 and spent €147,000 restoring has just grossed her €1.2 million. She did this by selling it in an online raffle hosted by a UK-based company, shifting 206,815 tickets priced at €5.92 a pop. The €1.2 million doesn't go straight into her pocket – there were marketing costs of €25,000 along the way, €2,600 in affiliate fees, and she has agreed to pay the winner's stamp duty and legal fees as part of the prize. Raffall, the lottery agent she chose (there are several based in the UK, where the raffles are classed as 'prize competitions'), takes 10 per cent. Then there's 33 per cent capital gains tax. READ MORE She had hoped to net €400,000 after costs on a house she reckons is worth €300,000. Instead, she'll walk away with over half a million – more than enough to fund her planned move to Italy. Collins is so thrilled by her success, she's considering abandoning plans to teach English and become a full-time internet marketer. The winner, Kathleen Spangler, a 29-year-old US marine corps officer, is ecstatic too. Coincidentally, as she told The New York Times, she applied for her Irish citizenship through lineage on her father's side last year. Raffall must also be chuffed with its 10 per cent. And even the losers are only out by €6 each. This can be read two ways: as the a heart-warming tale of a clever woman using her entrepreneurial flair and marketing skills to shift a house in Leitrim for four times its value and simultaneously making a young family's dreams come true. And no one really loses out; at least, not by very much. Or – miserable killjoy that I am, the way I can't help reading it – as a bleak statement about the housing dystopia we are experiencing. House raffles are a big, beautiful, awful idea. Their popularity is a grim reflection on a property market in which your best prospect of owning a house may well be to win one in a lottery. In 1984, George Orwell wrote about the lottery run by the Ministry of Plenty as a way of preventing 'the proles' from dwelling on the misery of their existence. 'It was probable that there were some millions of proles for whom the Lottery was the principal if not the only reason for remaining alive. It was their delight, their folly, their anodyne, their intellectual stimulant.' [ How to give yourself the best chance of buying a home amid Ireland's housing crisis Opens in new window ] If the odds of today's house lotteries are not as small as in Orwell's world, where the largest prizes do not exist at all, they're still less than spectacular. The majority of houses put up for raffle do not meet the minimum threshold of ticket sales. Raffall's founder and chief executive Stelios Kounou told The New York Times that 18 houses have been sold so far on the platform, while 50 others did not make their target. House lotteries may feel like a contemporary antidote to a modern affliction, but they are not a new idea – though the last time they got this level of attention might also have been the last time decent housing was this difficult to access in Ireland. In 1948, a giant house raffle was held in Dublin by the government of the day, when families on the social housing list were offered a chance to win one of between 220 and 250 brand new houses in Ballyfermot, according to historian Cathy Scuffil, who says there were lines of prams up and down Dawson Street. 'Every time somebody's name was called out, a big cheer would go up,' she said. Occasional 'newly wed draws' were held up to the 1970s for recently married couples on the housing list in Dublin. As a means of getting on the housing ladder, it probably beats bidding against wealthy Americans on a cottage in Leitrim. Today's house lotteries often inspire scepticism online, though, unlike in Orwell's dark vision, the prizes are real – a house if enough tickets are sold, a pile of cash if they're not. That is a fairly big qualifier. If the minimum number of tickets are not sold, the owner can cancel the raffle and keep 40 per cent of the funds and the house, giving 50 per cent of the cash to the winning ticket holder. Or they can give the house away anyway and keep more of the money. In Collins's case, if she had not met her goal of 150,000 tickets, she planned to give 40 per cent to the winner. [ Dolores McNamara: Whatever happened to the €115m lotto winner? Opens in new window ] On Raffall right now, you can buy a ticket for a semi-d in Yorkshire, apparently being raffled for the second time ('after the previous winner received the alternative huge cash prize option'), a villa with a pool in the Algarve or a beachfront villa on the island of Samui. Presumably most sellers are well-meaning people who want to try to pay off their mortgage, but it is not terribly difficult to imagine someone unscrupulous setting a wildly unrealistic ticket sales target – and pocketing 40 per cent of the cash when they don't make it. Still, browsing the listings, it's hard for even this sceptical prole to resist the temptation to splurge €6 on a ticket or two.
Sydney Morning Herald
18-06-2025
- Business
- Sydney Morning Herald
‘By chance, did you win a cottage in Ireland?'
'My wife doesn't even gamble,' Michael Spangler said, 'so that was a surprising text to get in the middle of a math course.' She told him more about the contest; he thought it was a scam. What were the chances that she had won a worldwide raffle competition based in Britain with just three tickets? But when she received an email from Raffall, and then from Collins herself, Spangler realised it had actually happened. 'Imelda's first email mentioned how I must be in shock, but she's excited for me,' she recalled. They spoke a few hours later on WhatsApp. 'It was a great experience to be able to speak directly to her, and helped to make things real.' Moving to Ireland would be something of a homecoming: Spangler's grandmother emigrated from County Mayo, in western Ireland, and her great-grandfather's family hailed from Sligo, a town about19 kilometres from the house. Collins, 52, was thrilled to hear that Spangler had roots in the area. 'I truly feel my home was meant to be hers,' she said. With a newborn, a new home and a new academic venture, the Spanglers are now beginning to sort out how and when they'll take possession of the house, from the legal red tape to the tax implications. 'My husband and I have talked about someday, when we are out of the military, getting property overseas and splitting time between [there and] the United States,' she said. 'But that was obviously a future goal.' Fortunately, they have some time. Property transfers in Ireland typically take around three months to complete, said Stelios Kounou, Raffall's CEO. The company acts as a go-between for hosts transferring their goods — which range from sports tickets to cars to homes — to the winners. In this case, Raffall will supply the legal team to oversee the due diligence for the company and for Collins. As part of her contest offer, Collins will pay for Spangler's attorney and the Irish stamp duty on the transaction. Kounou said that Raffall's solicitors have begun the paperwork in Britain. 'The contracts are handled by the lawyers much like a traditional property sale,' he said. 'The key difference is that, since the property was won rather than purchased, the winner doesn't have the same rights as a buyer — similar to how it works at auction. Once both parties are happy with the terms, the transfer of ownership and release of funds take place simultaneously, all managed by the lawyers.' For Collins, who decided to raffle her house after reading about another Irishwoman who had raffled her Dublin apartment, the closing of the contest brings a huge sense of relief. When she launched her raffle in October, she set a goal of selling 150,000 tickets via Raffall. At £5 apiece, that would come to £750,000, or about $1.53 million. Not bad for a house she bought for about $230,000 in 2022. She monitored her ticket sales every day, spending nearly €25,000 (about $44,000) out of pocket for advertising and marketing. 'I accepted that I probably wasn't going to succeed, but I am an optimist and was going to remain hopeful until the very last minute,' she said. If she fell short of 150,000 tickets, as per Raffall's terms, she could give the winner 50 per cent of the revenue and keep 40 per cent and the house, or give the house away and keep more of the revenue for herself. Until a few days before the May 20 draw, she was unsure she'd meet her goal. But in the end, Collins said, 206,815 tickets were sold, grossing £1,034,705 (about $2.14 million). Besides the 10 per cent to Raffall, she has about €2600 to pay in affiliate fees, plus a 33 per cent capital gains tax, 1 per cent of the value of the house for stamp duty, and fees for her lawyers and the Spanglers' lawyers. 'There are days I am still in disbelief that it happened and it actually happened to me,' Collins said. 'I don't want to say I believe in miracles, but I always try and give it a go to see what happens. I'm over the moon.' She and Spangler anticipate meeting at some point for the handing over of keys. While they wait for instruction from the attorneys, Collins is sure of one thing: 'There will be a big deal when the keys actually get transferred. I will make it very special.'
The Age
18-06-2025
- Business
- The Age
‘By chance, did you win a cottage in Ireland?'
'My wife doesn't even gamble,' Michael Spangler said, 'so that was a surprising text to get in the middle of a math course.' She told him more about the contest; he thought it was a scam. What were the chances that she had won a worldwide raffle competition based in Britain with just three tickets? But when she received an email from Raffall, and then from Collins herself, Spangler realised it had actually happened. 'Imelda's first email mentioned how I must be in shock, but she's excited for me,' she recalled. They spoke a few hours later on WhatsApp. 'It was a great experience to be able to speak directly to her, and helped to make things real.' Moving to Ireland would be something of a homecoming: Spangler's grandmother emigrated from County Mayo, in western Ireland, and her great-grandfather's family hailed from Sligo, a town about19 kilometres from the house. Collins, 52, was thrilled to hear that Spangler had roots in the area. 'I truly feel my home was meant to be hers,' she said. With a newborn, a new home and a new academic venture, the Spanglers are now beginning to sort out how and when they'll take possession of the house, from the legal red tape to the tax implications. 'My husband and I have talked about someday, when we are out of the military, getting property overseas and splitting time between [there and] the United States,' she said. 'But that was obviously a future goal.' Fortunately, they have some time. Property transfers in Ireland typically take around three months to complete, said Stelios Kounou, Raffall's CEO. The company acts as a go-between for hosts transferring their goods — which range from sports tickets to cars to homes — to the winners. In this case, Raffall will supply the legal team to oversee the due diligence for the company and for Collins. As part of her contest offer, Collins will pay for Spangler's attorney and the Irish stamp duty on the transaction. Kounou said that Raffall's solicitors have begun the paperwork in Britain. 'The contracts are handled by the lawyers much like a traditional property sale,' he said. 'The key difference is that, since the property was won rather than purchased, the winner doesn't have the same rights as a buyer — similar to how it works at auction. Once both parties are happy with the terms, the transfer of ownership and release of funds take place simultaneously, all managed by the lawyers.' For Collins, who decided to raffle her house after reading about another Irishwoman who had raffled her Dublin apartment, the closing of the contest brings a huge sense of relief. When she launched her raffle in October, she set a goal of selling 150,000 tickets via Raffall. At £5 apiece, that would come to £750,000, or about $1.53 million. Not bad for a house she bought for about $230,000 in 2022. She monitored her ticket sales every day, spending nearly €25,000 (about $44,000) out of pocket for advertising and marketing. 'I accepted that I probably wasn't going to succeed, but I am an optimist and was going to remain hopeful until the very last minute,' she said. If she fell short of 150,000 tickets, as per Raffall's terms, she could give the winner 50 per cent of the revenue and keep 40 per cent and the house, or give the house away and keep more of the revenue for herself. Until a few days before the May 20 draw, she was unsure she'd meet her goal. But in the end, Collins said, 206,815 tickets were sold, grossing £1,034,705 (about $2.14 million). Besides the 10 per cent to Raffall, she has about €2600 to pay in affiliate fees, plus a 33 per cent capital gains tax, 1 per cent of the value of the house for stamp duty, and fees for her lawyers and the Spanglers' lawyers. 'There are days I am still in disbelief that it happened and it actually happened to me,' Collins said. 'I don't want to say I believe in miracles, but I always try and give it a go to see what happens. I'm over the moon.' She and Spangler anticipate meeting at some point for the handing over of keys. While they wait for instruction from the attorneys, Collins is sure of one thing: 'There will be a big deal when the keys actually get transferred. I will make it very special.'
