Can You Buy A Home For $50?
For so many sellers in America's housing slump, the signs look grim. No offers.
But Heather Gray hopes to get thousands of them - by raffling off the American Dream, reports CBS News correspondent Mark Strassmann.
"For $100, somebody could walk away with this house," Gray said.
To win her four-bedroom house, anyone donating $100 to a military charity automatically is entered into a drawing. If Gray sells about 4,500 tickets, the charity would pay off her $350,000 mortgage, and pocket any profits - and Gray would dodge disaster.
"I didn't want to be just another number thrown into the pile of foreclosures," she said. "So I tried to think of a creative way that I could get myself out of debt."
She's not alone. In Maryland, Tom Walter raffled off his house - six bedrooms, 6,000 square feet. It was appraised at $1.3 million, and sold for $50.
Outside Denver, Karen McHale bought two raffle tickets online and on a whim.
"I was in shock for days," McHale said. "I figured I'd get an email that said, so-and-so won the house. And now, I'm so-and so."
As the winner, she'll also have to pay federal and state taxes, roughly a third of whatever she sells her new Maryland house for. With her great view of the Rockies in Colorado, she doesn't plan on moving anywhere.
"I'm going to take the money and run," McHale said.
Walter sold almost 24,000 raffle tickets - enough to pay off the mortgages and liens on the house.
That's Heather Gray's goal, like so many other Americans: a fresh start, with a little luck.
