I think more states and governments should look at this across the world. I'm based in Detroit and foreclosures are a fact of life every day. I know for a fact people would love to do this if it was legal and they could sell enough tickets. I hope governments step up and show some initiative and a bit of lateral thinking given the mess they put us in frankly.

I just don't see why legislators are being so obtuse about this issue. In the UK loads of homeowners have lost literally thousands of pounds trying to set up this type of scheme as a competition rather than a lottery as they are illegal here as well. Many of them simply didn't really know how to organise them properly and they got burned as a result. Why should it not be made simpler by governments, after all they just announced this £2,000 incentive to scrap your motor in return for a new one I don't see why this couldn't be put forward as well.

Which means it's unlikely to get done anytime soon. And is anyone surprised -- why do they even ask them? -- that the realtors, estate agents, are against the idea? Yes, there are a few good agents, just as there are a few good lawyers (I have two), but part of the reason I decided to do my raffle was that I'd given my holiday complex to three so-called "top agents", who arrived in their, respectively, BMW 735i, shiny Lexus, and Mercedes something posh (casting disdainful glances at my battered old Golf), and deigned to opine that yes, for only a cool quarter of a million they'd condescend to put a photo of my place in their window. Which they did, after which they proceeded to send me an endless parade of penurious would-be hotelier wannabes with no experience, and absurdly enough, no money. They hadn't qualified them at all. Don't get me wrong; some of them were nice people, but not people who ever in the world should have been sent to view a multi-million holiday complex. So let's leave the agents out of the equation and pass laws to simply allow people to raffle their homes as they see fit. Putting in a clause that would require a portion of the sale to go to charity would make sense in these parlous times for everyone, including charities, but the main message that ought to penetrate, even into the rock-like heads of our legislators, is that house raffles are win-win-win-win propositions: good for the sellers, who get their price if they do the job right, good for a punter, who gets a house for the price of lunch, good for a charity, which gets a windfall, and even good for the government, which gets its taxes. Oh yes, it's even good for the bloody banks, because some foreclosures may be avoided, and foreclosures do no good for anyone. George Scott of the raffle for people smart enough to get their minds around "the bleedin' obvious".