A house in Houston being sold for for $150.00 and an essay | Hacker News Reader

A house in Houston being sold for for $150.00 and an essay

150house.com

20 pointsarmenarmen25 comments

This is essentially a skill-based sweepstakes. Not necessarily illegal, so long as the homeowner treads carefully.

But it's worth pointing out that there is nothing in the rules, so far as there are official rules, that one must tell the truth in one's essay, so as long as you can come up with a plausible and compelling story, it can be utterly fictional.

Clickbait! The house is not being sold for $150.

Yeah, it's being raffled, and the ticket costs $150.

Not even being raffled, since they retain the option to refund your fees if they "don't find a buyer". Or in other words, if it goes viral enough that they earn more than the value of the home, it will go to someone for $150, otherwise they sell it normally.

It's like none of you have seen a scam before. It doesn't matter how many people enter. He's going to "sell" it to an associate, and they'll pocket the entry fees, no matter how many people apply. Rinse and repeat.

Oh, I didn't see that. Jeez, what a scam.

In poker terms, it is negative EV to play

    Truly one of the best locations in all of Houston.
    The home is centrally located, incredibly walkable
    (78 WalkScore)

I've always heard that Houston was car-centric and terrible for pedestrians, but is a Walkscore of 78 really considered "incredibly walkable" for the city?

In comparison, my address in Seattle has a walkscore of 96 (https://www.walkscore.com/score/1406-e-republican-st-seattle...), and mid-Market in SF around where Twitter is located has a walkscore of 97.

No, it's not considered "incredibly walkable". But more realistically, until the last few years, even people who lived in the truly walkable parts of Houston didn't care or often take advantage of it. For the two dozen of us who did care, it was easy to get somewhere in the high 80's. My place (in Montrose) has a walkscore of 86, and it's not even in the most ideal location (startup salary, you see).

You say "for the city", and the real answer is "which city"? Explaining it requires some background on how Houston is structured (i.e. no single urban core, several "pockets" of density that are only finally growing together). There are parts of town "in Houston" that are further from each other than some cities are from the another on the East Coast, but within their little pocket, a part of Houston might be "incredibly walkable"... but then someone in another pocket invites you to a dinner party, and you'll have to drive to get there.

I can write a little more in depth about Houston's structure (it's really interesting and in the middle of huge changes) but want to keep this comment more focused on your point.

I know the are well, and let's just call it Walkable. For comparison, I moved from the suburbs of Houston (14 walking score) to the Montrose area (94) for the same reasons why I live visiting Manhattan - not having to drive most of the time.

Chao's comment is right on. Living in your own pocket is great, but driving to the article's house still takes 20-25 minutes since it's all interior roads.

I don't know Houston in particular, but that's fairly typical for the rest of Texas. My childhood home gets a 22, and my parent's new house (despite actually being more central in the city) scores a 10 (more shops within a couple miles, but the neighborhood itself is more enclaved).

A friend's place on the outskirts of downtown San Antonio manages a 79, which is the highest I can find from my still-TX-living contacts I have addresses for.

If you're used to major west coast or east coast cities the difference in the type/level of sprawl in Texas can be pretty startling.

Similarly, there are only a handful of people from my high school class who don't have "single family home with a yard" as a short-term life goal. And a lot of them have already achieved it. Very different demographic compared with what I find out here.

they need 2666 applications to hit the appraised value. Think they can?

If there's one place you could do it in Houston right now, it'd be the Heights. The city can be affordable as hell, but there is a lot of urban infill starting (rather than building more surburbs). So the walkable/bikeable parts of the city have seen price increases for the last 3-4 years, and remain unaffected so far by the decline in oil prices (which people often assume will result in a decline in home prices).

Well, I am tempted to bid for a laugh and I am in the UK and unlikely to move there.

Looking at the tax history it looks like they might have bought it for around $300K so if that is the case they only need (a nice and even) 2000 people before they break even and everything after that is gravy.

2666 is actually not that many... if it goes even a little bit viral it will probably work.

So to summarize this deal it seems (reading this thread)

It is a skill based raffle (as there is no set criteria it sorta falls between game of skill and game of chance). If they get around or over 2666 applications = $399,000 (guess on what house is worth) then they will award the house to someone.

If they don't get that then they just sell it the regular way. If they do sell regular way then you get your $150 back. If they award it then you lose your $150 unless you win the house, then well you are the winner.

Skill based gambling is exactly what this is. It's legal 36 states. Normally skill based gambling is restricted to two person/computer games where they basically solve a silly puzzle in fastest times. The OP has in essence designed a game that can massively scale up to millions of people without setting up time limits and that can reused over and over. This is genuinely impressive business model that we have seen in a while. However chances of this getting dragged in courts is higher but I'm doubtful if OP would lose in those battles.

Yeah this probably will end with someone either being arrested or sued. They'll either a) raise more than what they want for the house (incredibly unlikely) or b) "award" the house to a related party and never leave.

Also if you scroll to the end of the site, you see "Not what you're looking for? My name is Michael Wachs and I'm a Realtor®. I'd love to help you with anything you might need." So maybe he's just trying to get exposure.

Exactly right. This is just the usual penny auction scam where the auctioneer's confederate places the final bid.

Keep in mind that if they don't get a ton of money, they just refund all the offer fees and they sell it normally. Risk-free for them.

Breakthrough business model?

With a great house, you can make more money from several bids at $150 than you would from a market using neighboring prices against you. The buyer doesn't have to be local, and they can sell it afterwards at any price they want.

It's the force that counteracts location, location, location. It's easier for a buyer to be from as far a location imaginable.

So what about all the other costs associated with a house sale? Closing costs? Inspections?

Who's going to pay for all of that? There's no mention of who's responsible for those.

Sure, they only need around 2,700 applicants to hit their appraised price, but how much more do they need to cover all the rest of the costs of selling a house?

It is as is. Title fees are mentioned, as are applicable taxes and fees. Buyer needs a little funding, but not much.

I bet they could get a lot more money if the fee was $1.

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