Stunning £3.5m five-bed mansion on banks of River Thames could be yours for just £25 – if you can win this game
The owners of the property spent months trying to find a suitable buyer before deciding to change their selling strategy
A GORGEOUS five-bedroom mansion on the bank of the River Thames can be won for just £25 with a trivial game.
Homeowners Helen and Gary Weller designed, built and lived in the £3.5 million riverside property, but are now giving people the chance to win it with a game of 'spot the ball'.
At the cost of a £25 entrance fee, property punters can go online to guess where the centre of a computer-generated ball should be.
Judges will then pinpoint where the centre of the ball is and whoever has marked the centre the closest, wins the multi-million pound mansion.
The idea for the sales tactic emerged after the couple spent months trying to find a buyer for their home in Caversham, Berkshire.
"It's about giving someone who would never be able to afford a house like this a chance to own it," said Mrs Well.
"The people who enthusiastically said they loved the house were delivery drivers, postmen, cab drivers and our cat sitter friends, all who said if I won the lottery I would buy your house, and so the seed of this idea started.
"We decided that we wanted to give people a chance to own it for a manageable sum and so decided to hold a competition with our house as the prize."
The game is "totally legal" according to Mrs Wellers, who has promised to hand over the keys to the winner if at least 200,000 people enter the bid.
If there are fewer than 200,000 entrants, the couple will give the winner 75 per cent of the proceeds. In total, 500,000 tickets are are on offer.
The competition, which has already been officially launched, will run for six months and is due to finish on March 14 in 2018.
The couple have not yet decided where they will move to.
Mrs Weller said: "When we got married in August 1982 we raised the deposit on our first home by selling my Triumph Stag and saving, something not possible for most people today.
"We were fortunate that we could pay the mortgage on one salary and over the next 30 years moved up the housing ladder until building Reve House five years ago.
"I really wanted someone else to have the chance we had to own their own house. I actually designed it myself and we built it five years ago.
"The gas, water, council tax and house insurance costs £500 a month, that's not bad.
"Most people could afford that, especially if they don't have a mortgage to pay, and it's probably less than the cost of renting a room in Reading."
She added: "I just want people to realise this is totally legal. We have spent three months and a lot of own money to make sure it's totally legal."
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