Win a house competitions - Omaze etc..

Quartz said:
Again, no.

I am well aware of the difference, I checked, and this was the only raffle of theirs I have entered.
Click to expand...

They stated last year and there have only been 3 competitions completed so far: Cheshire, London and the Cotswolds - which did you enter?

You're simply mistaken, this is easily checked by looking at web archive - for all of them they donate 80% of the net proceeds.
 
Last edited:
New house just dropped, same deal as all the other draws, Omaze get 20% of net proceeds:

https://omaze.co.uk/pages/ascot

This one looks likes perhaps the nicest one so far, bit bigger than the Wimbledon one even as it's just outside London.

What is a bit annoying is that previously there was some quadruple ticket entry thing for the previous two, I bought some tickets using a special double tickets offer... like so long as a significant number of entrants pay the regular price then getting double the tickets should be technically +EV. The "free" entries cost more than purchasing when you look at the cost of a stamp + postcard.

There seems to be a triple entry offer - this new house + Devon + Wimbledon might be worth a punt. Also, I saw that there are two US houses on their US site you can enter (including free entry online!) and they seem to have another competition for a trip into space too.
 
Probably worse odds than winning a significant prize in the lottery right?

Lottery.. Lots of semi decent prizes.
Omaze.. 1 or 2 mega prizes. Then nothing.

Have to say I was tempted by the Devon House. But my logic side says its no different to throwing money away. It's clever advertising as for some reason it does seem more appealing than cash. Which is absolutely ridiculous!
 
Also. At least with the lottery the odds of wining 6 numbers is fixed.

With these raffles it could be 1 in 100k or 1 in 10 million. You have no idea.
 
dowie said:
https://omaze.co.uk/pages/ascot
Click to expand...

Well blow me down. I grew up around there, but not in a house as grand as that! That house even looks vaguely familiar. It reminds me of the Institute of Building, but is obviously smaller. Judging by the floorplans, with such large rooms it may well not a recently-built copy of an old building but rather a fully renovated old building, though the lack of a basement and dining room makes me doubt it. But I left the area in the 80s so I could be completely wrong.
 
413x said:
Probably worse odds than winning a significant prize in the lottery right?

Lottery.. Lots of semi decent prizes.
Omaze.. 1 or 2 mega prizes. Then nothing.
Click to expand...

The EV is better here than the lottery, especially if buying tickets with a promotion, of course, there are more smaller prizes with the lottery, with Omaze you have the main house then there are some additional smaller prizes of cars etc..

Quartz said:
Well blow me down. I grew up around there, but not in a house as grand as that! That house even looks vaguely familiar. It reminds me of the Institute of Building, but is obviously smaller. Judging by the floorplans, with such large rooms it may well not a recently-built copy of an old building but rather a fully renovated old building, though the lack of a basement and dining room makes me doubt it. But I left the area in the 80s so I could be completely wrong.
Click to expand...

Could be refurbished or a conversion I guess? Looking at the plans there is a basement, though it's not clear if it is entered from the outside. Perhaps it is semi-detached or somehow the wing of a bigger property? Don't have an address for it yet to take a look.

413x said:
Also. At least with the lottery the odds of wining 6 numbers is fixed.

With these raffles it could be 1 in 100k or 1 in 10 million. You have no idea.
Click to expand...

You get a rough idea - basically, they take 20% of net proceeds and charity takes 80%, there is the cost of some additional prizes on top too + promotional costs. They're estimating they'll raise 500k for the charity thus 125k profit for themselves add in the 3.5 million cost of the house and that comes to 4.125 million they'd be selling in tickets, but then you need to add on the cost of a few cars and advertising costs, costs for the 3rd party that conducts the draw etc.. could be more like 4.5 million or maybe even a bit more, like 5 million or so in ticket sales... for a prize worth 3.5 million.

It's still likely the prize that takes up the bulk of the ticket sales, unlike the lottery.
 
dowie said:
Could be refurbished or a conversion I guess?
Click to expand...

Quite possibly.

dowie said:
Looking at the plans there is a basement,
Click to expand...

I meant a proper, whole-house, basement, where storage and servants' quarters might be.

Anyway, I've been looking at Google Earth and havn't spotted it anywhere near the areas I used to know. It's the sort of house that would be on Prince Albert Drive or Prince Consort Drive but I've not spotted it. I used to gain access to the woods from the ends of those. Great fun for a youngster.

Still, the Ascot area was a lovely place to grow up and whoever wins that house will enjoy it there.
 
VincentHanna said:
No blinds on it either. I seem to recall reading it would need £10,000 just spent on blinds.
Click to expand...

Why, is someone going to tell you you must only fit expensive blinds costing £10,000 or something?

"You have no right to buy those cheaper blinds or curtains for the bedrooms in a designer house like this!" :D

Anyway, it's nonsense, looks like there are already curtains and blinds fitted in the bedrooms, on the other hand if someone wants to pointlessly fit some ridiculously massive blinds to the double-height living room then that would look rather silly! The house is quite well hidden, not overlooked.

Master bedroom with curtains:
ICxZIpJ.png

Bedroom below it with curtains:
HKALGVB.png

Bedroom on the other side with blind fitted:
G8g7u7D.png

Kevin Clark said:
I dunno, looks like you have to drive through the static caravan park next door and put up with the noise from the beach that it uses.
https://goo.gl/maps/gZfavqFfM9XARUaw6
Click to expand...

Nah, separate entrance, stick the little google guy on the road and you'll see this entrance:

zPnuMA9.png

And if you look closely at the map you can see the driveway/road slightly obscured by trees (blue dashed line below). It does look like it might be crossed by people from the caravan park in order to access the dog walking field (red dashed line below), but there is a gate at the end of it before you get to the house itself.

It was nicknamed the "stealth house" when built so it seems to mostly be out of sight, as for the beach, there is quite a big drop down those cliffs, I doubt people on the beach below will be too much of an issue.

E6A1eTh.png
 
Puzzled said:
Tbh I doubt anyone who wins these houses would actually live in them. They'll all get sold, probably for a fair bit less than what Omaze values them at.
Click to expand...

Probs best off renting out the Devon one if you won it, the yield on holiday lets at the moment is likely going to be pretty sweet, especially for a high-end place like that which was already renting for like 8k a week pre-Covid!
 
dowie said:
Why, is someone going to tell you you must only fit expensive blinds costing £10,000 or something?

"You have no right to buy those cheaper blinds or curtains for the bedrooms in a designer house like this!" :D

Anyway, it's nonsense, looks like there are already curtains and blinds fitted in the bedrooms, on the other hand if someone wants to pointlessly fit some ridiculously massive blinds to the double-height living room then that would look rather silly! The house is quite well hidden, not overlooked.

Master bedroom with curtains:
ICxZIpJ.png

Bedroom below it with curtains:
HKALGVB.png

Bedroom on the other side with blind fitted:
G8g7u7D.png
Click to expand...

This is the article I read, but it's dated 2019: https://www.ribaj.com/buildings/ste...devon-guy-greenfield-architects-eleanor-young

It has the pool, a high spec kitchen, electric gates, garage and film room. But it lacks the warmth of inhabitation. And it is also missing the estimated £10,000 blind system and wardrobes, though all is ready for these to be installed to the new owner’s taste. So the white walls can seem rather stark and the feature stairs – one with curving glass balustrade, one an exercise in structural reductiveness with added bracing – feel uncomfortably like set pieces, extravagant furniture in an unfurnished house.

The entrance feels like the biggest compromise. On paper the steps facing you alongside the protective wall, rising into the glazed slot between it and the main volume, promise to be full of drama. And they are. But there is something about the 15 relatively steep, partially enclosed, grey steps that makes them daunting and rather dreary. From the entrance and parking space, confronted with the blank storeys of the garage end wall and above, you are offered no clues, nothing to suggest the climb will be worth it.
Click to expand...
 
VincentHanna said:
This is the article I read, but it's dated 2019: https://www.ribaj.com/buildings/ste...devon-guy-greenfield-architects-eleanor-young
Click to expand...

Ah, so that was back when it was on the open market, unfurnished and before Omaze got hold of it and filled it with furniture and fittings. Clearly, a £10k "blind system" isn't required though given they've gone and put curtains in at least two of the bedrooms.

The deal with most of these houses is that they spend a decent 5 figure sum on furniture to kit them out too, maybe minus one or two bedrooms that they don't show on their pictures. The Wimbledon house has some fancy exercise bike and rowing machine worth a fair bit too.

They also throw in circa 20k for the first year of running costs. I'd certainly not be complaining if I won it, should be able to make 200k or so per year off the thing at least, even after employing a local housekeeper to sort it out between guests.
 
Quartz said:
Anyway, I've been looking at Google Earth and havn't spotted it anywhere near the areas I used to know. It's the sort of house that would be on Prince Albert Drive or Prince Consort Drive but I've not spotted it. I used to gain access to the woods from the ends of those. Great fun for a youngster.
Click to expand...

Got the location:

SL5 7EG on google maps

Queen's Hill, private road.

As suspected it is part of a bigger building, I think it roughly encompasses the bit I've outlined in blue, not too sure about how much of the garden to the right-hand side it has, it definitely has the garden to the south and a triple garage at the bottom. Not sure how the garage works, the rear of it opens to the bit behind the gate on the video below but the plans seem to show triple garage doors to the south - maybe there is some shared driveway bit with the house in green somehow? The main building seems to be split among two further properties which seem to share a driveway to the north, they're presumably split as per the red and yellow below:

[edit, got map drawing completely wrong]

Video available here:

https://vimeo.com/442961940

Interestingly it sold for 1.5 million in 2014 (after listing for more like 1.75 million), it was last listed on Rightmove in March this year and I guess pulled when Omaze got involved, not sure how much it was listed for... I guess if you win and it's a second home... then selling at below 3.5 million gives you a six-figure GCT writeoff for the next 4 years!

https://www.rightmove.co.uk/house-p...l?prop=97246982&sale=74504736&country=england
 
Last edited:
Fancy a 3.5 milling house being semi-detached! :D

Any house which is being included in one of these competitions is worth looking at with a bit of suspicion - why wasn't it selling on the open market?

But as said above - if the price of the ticket doesn't matter to you, presumably you wouldn't have so much difficulty if you were willing to sell it for significantly less.
 
You must log in or register to reply here.
Back
Top Bottom