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Couple raffle £650,000 house

A couple in the Tees Valley are raffling their £650,000 dream home in a bid to beat the housing slump. Tickets to win the luxury six-bedroom mansion in Ingleby Barwick, Stockton-on-Tees, are on sale for £25 each over the internet.

Vicky Brown and her husband Simon need to sell a not-insignificant amount of tickets to cover the mortgage and legal fees. They’ve calculated that they need to sell around 22,000 to raise enough money.

The couple, who have a 20-month old daughter Lexie and with another baby on the way, only moved into the house that Simon designed himself late last year. But less than a year on they want to downsize.

Simon, who owns creative agency Calm Asylum, said: “We built the house with the intention of selling it and moving on to the next project, but with the credit crunch and the decline in the housing market we’ve decided to give the raffle idea a go.”

Vicky and Simon said a friend gave them the idea to try and raffle their home. She said: “Our friend did it for a £200,000 house and it worked. But the figure we’re looking at achieving is around £595,000 - it’s a lot of money to try and raise.”

The couple are donating a portion of each ticket sale to charity - The Main Project for autistic children. If the Browns don’t manage to raise the amount they need from the raffle they will hold a prize draw for the money they have raised less admin costs and proceeds to charity. Solicitors are supervising both the sale of tickets and the prize draw.

The website for the house raffle is www.winfellowshall.com, which also features a gallery of the house and full terms and conditions for the competition.

This was posted in Bdaily's Members' News section by Ruth Mitchell .