$150 House
150house.com
150house.com
Also this: > By putting our home on the market for a dollar, we have made home ownership in an expensive and competitive market more affordable to a greater portion of the population.
Feels completely disingenuous. So they're taking $150 from 2000+ people who they feel bad for because they're poor. That makes absolutely no sense. That's like selling poor people a lottery ticket but proclaiming "but they could will ten million dollars!"
I guess it doesn't really matter, but I don't believe this is a scam and it's not preying on poor people: We (middle class) submitted an offer under similar terms for a bed and breakfast in Maine. There is only one house, so only one person/family/entity can eventually own it.
Also, if we don't sell the home via this process (which looks likely), we're refunding money. But sure, call it a scam--although it's the very worst scam considering I've told everyone where I live with my family, my phone number in a large font, my email, and potentially making no money. Quite sinister, indeed.
My brother just put in an offer that was accepted on a house in California that was thousands of dollars below multiple other offers according to the listing agent. Why? Because the owners liked his letter. Having a letter accompany an offer is fairly standard in real estate and as long as we're not violating any fair housing laws (essays were to be stripped of identifying information), I don't see how this is different. In hacker parlance, it's just at scale. I am, admittedly, a bit defensive about all of this.
RE: Poverty--I can't control what people are spending their money on. I know that sounds like a "not my problem" answer, but it would be pretty condescending for me to tell someone they were not adult enough not to make their own decisions (we made them check a box that they're 18). For a person who would become the new owner, it would change their life dramatically—I've read some realllllly horrible stories about poverty now.
Maybe it's not the best use of money. On the other hand, if you wrote an amazing offer and competed against--max--3,000 people to own a home, would that put you at better odds to dramatically change your life than solely working a minimum wage job in an unsafe environment?
(That said, it wasn't our intent to find the poorest/any specific person to sell the house to—I'm just using that as an example.)
How about next moving to penny auctions for houses! <sarcasm>
Think about it like this: You enter a pro-poker tournament, you pay $10k to POSSIBLY win $2million. Or a better example, you enter a baking competition with a $50 entry. The judges choose based on their feelings. They use their expert knowledge and weed out the people who couldn't perform technically.... but everything after that is based on their feelings and personal tastes/preferences. This is no different.
To the point of some other people in this thread... Ye this is totally preying on desperate people and is Fked up. I don't know if they realize or just don't care but anyone entering is looking to 'better' themselves. There's no reason to enter a subjective competition like this when you're an investor with money to burn... so everyone entering is people with sob stories looking for hope and they're most likely spending money that they really shouldn't be giving up with their current situation.
http://www.consumer.ftc.gov/articles/0199-prize-scams
http://www.ohiostartuplaw.com/is-your-business-running-an-il...