From NYT: Lakefront Dream House in the Catskills Essay Contest Over with No Winners

  |  June 27, 2017

We’ve been following this story since December 2016 with interest, wondering if giving your house away via essay contest might be the wave of the future for residential real estate in the Catskills. Alas, 391 Woodstone Trail in the Sullivan County town of Bethel will not be given away to an essay writer, and the homeowners have shut down the contest due to lack of entrants, refunded the entrance fee to those who did enter (minus a $49 administrative fee), and shut down their social media accounts as of May 30, 2017.

The New York Times picked up the story of Andrew Bares’ and Kelly Lavorgna’s lake house give-away back in February. At that time, the contest called for entrants to enter by writing essays no more than 200 words and pay a $149 entrance fee, $100 of which would be refunded if the required 5500 people do not sign up. The log cabin-style lake house in question had a listing price of $825,000 in 2015 and includes two bedrooms and one full bath, situated on Black Lake about two hours from NYC. A portion of the contest’s proceeds were set to go toward two charities, Girls, Inc. and the National Pediatric Center. A recent follow-up in the NYT did not specify whether those charities received any money, but we can deduce that between the $100 refund and the non-refundable $49 administrative fee, probably not.

According to the NYT article, some people took to social media to express their misgivings about the contest. One skeptic posted on her Facebook: “Will you be announcing the winner or is this a ploy for free advertising?” Guess it’s back to selling houses the old-fashioned way…

 

Read On, Reader...