House Raffle
Updated : May 19, 2009
An Austrian businessman is raffling off his luxury home and will use the proceeds to help fund microcredits in the Third World, the daily Der Standard reported on Monday.
Karl Rabeder, 47, is selling his luxury 321-square metre (3,455-square feet) villa with swimming pool, sauna and spectacular mountain views in Tyrol, valued at 1.6 million euros (2.2 million dollars), via a lottery, he told the newspaper.
Some 21,999 lottery tickets priced at just 99 euros apiece are on sale.
Rabeder will then invest the proceeds in his own non-profit organisation, MyMicroCredit, which he set up a few months ago.
The businessman, who made his fortune from interior furnishings and accessories, already sold his business in 2004.
"For a long time I believed that more wealth and luxury automatically meant more happiness. Now it's time to sell my house, so I can be 'free' for my new life," he told the newspaper.
From now on, he would live and work from a modest rented appartment in Innsbruck, he said.
A number of Austrians have raffled off their homes recently, as they see it as a way of securing their desired asking price if they fail to find a buyer by more traditional methods.
