Now THAT’s what i call getting creative! And these days, i don’t blame him – it sure is one way to sell a house (you hear that stupid foreclosure neighbor?!). Imagine, owning a 6,000 square foot 6 bedroom 4.5 bath house for a crisp $50 bill – AMAZING. Here’s a clip from the article i found on MSNBC:

“After more than a year of making major improvements on the home, Walters has been hit doubly hard. He’s in the mortgage business, and as his property value plummets, his paycheck is also shrinking….Walters has to donate a portion of the ticket sales to charity, so he calculates that he must sell 31,000 tickets by the end of the year to meet his goal. He’s already more than a third of the way there, with 10,000 tickets sold.”

So is it really worth the shot? Man, i dunno…the gambler in me REALLY wants to play, but the smart-financial side of me says hooooooooooooold up – your odds of winning are slim to none buster.

While this is true, the odds are MUCH better than winning the lottery! Here you have a 1 in 31,000 chance of winning (possibly even less if he can’t reach this desired #), whereas you have like a 1 in 175,000,000 chance of hitting the megamillions. True you’re also blowing through 50 $1 bills instead of just 1, AND your prize is much smaller, but still – SOMEONE has to win it!

But then again, let’s just say for the fun of it you DO win. Now you’re a proud owner of a whole bunch of taxes, upkeep, etc…esp if you already own a home (and i’m willing to guess most people playing don’t actually NEED this home). So what if someone wins who can’t afford to maintain and keep it all up like some neighbors are afraid of? Well, then you just sell it! But now, if you sell it, the neighbors get SUPER pissed! Esp. if you, let’s say, unload it for half it’s value – $500k. Now it lowers all the other property values in the neighborhood, right? Boy….what a crazy situation! Wanna play yet? Here’s some more on it:

So yeah, I’m still considering getting in on the action (visit fiftydollarhouse.com to play), but i’m more likely to chalk it up to a “good idea” and then forget about it tomorrow ;)