Back in February we told you about a brand new win a house competition. The prize was a six-bedroomed Melling Manor near Kirkby Lonsdale, valued at over £800,000 and the competition was the idea of Dustan Low. He’d failed to attract a buyer and decided to resort to using the competition method to giveaway his property. In truth we were quite sceptical about his chances of success but Mr Low has been incredibly tenacious with his efforts.
Melling Manor Winner
In fact his efforts have been so good that the competition has now closed and there’s a winner! The new owner of Melling Manor is a Marie Segar of Warrington. According to reports she bought £20 worth of tickets and as part of the prize now becomes Lady Of Melling. Although the total number of tickets sold hasn’t been revealed, Mr Low has said that he’s raised over £900,000. This sum includes charitable donations to St Johns and NYAS. Congratulations to the winner but even bigger congrats has to go to Dunstan Low who has succeeded where many have failed. We think his success has come about in a number of ways. Firstly, he used the press and publicity the competition received to his advantage and kept up his campaign during the full six months. Many similar competitions get a few lines at launch and that’s the last you’ll hear of them.
Publicity Helps
The publicity helped spread the word regarding the competition – and being the first giveaway of it’s type in a while helped attract interest in The UK and Worldwide. Secondly, Low set the entry price at a realistic level – just £2, the price of a National Lottery ticket! Previous competitions have set their prices much higher and in our view it’s harder to justify purchasing a ticket for £20 or £50. A lower price is attractive and also encourages multiple ticket sales. We also think Low was realistic in terms of what he wanted from the competition. After taxes, charitable donations and expenses he’s probably attained a decent price for his property. Other win a house competitions often look to generate huge profits on top of the value of the property and come a cropper. Finally, the prize in question is desirable. The website showed off the property well and it was an appealing proposition. It’ll be interesting to see what the new owner plans to do with Melling Manor in the future.
More Win A House Competitions?
So will the successful conclusion of this giveaway mean more win a house competitions? We suspect that it may well do and we understand Dunstan Low is keen to help others market their properties in a similar way. He’s most certainly hit a winning formula for his own home – can he replicate that success for others? We wish him good luck.