HOW much would you pay for a new house? How about £100?

That’s set to be the reality for the lucky person who wins a family home in Hythe.

After trying to sell their four-bedroom, £455,000 house in Fairview Drive for seven months, Graeme and Debi Sargent decided to take the novel approach of offering people the chance to win their home.

The couple moved to Canada with their three children – aged 11, three and 18 months – six months ago and are desperate to sell their house so they can start a new life there.

They are selling 7,000 tickets, priced £100 each, for the opportunity to become the new owner of their home.

“I heard of someone doing it a few years ago and it’s stuck with me ever since,” said 33- year-old Graeme.

“We’ve been in Canada for six months and we put it on the market a month before. We’ve got friends who have had houses on the market for a long, long time now. We rented it out for six months but the tenants have moved out and now we’re paying a big mortgage in England and we live in Canada.

We thought we had to do something.”

If they manage to sell all 7,000 tickets the couple have pledged to donate £15,000 to the Oakhaven Hospice Trust, based in Lymington, having both lost close friends to cancer.

The profits from the tickets will also cover other costs such as their solicitor’s fees as well as those of the lucky winner, setting up their website, estate agent fees and advertising.

However, it will still leave them with more money than the house is worth, freeing up the cash for them to buy a new home where they are currently renting, in Comox Valley on Vancouver Island.

Graeme, who worked as a firefighter in the UK, and Debi, a former police officer, fell in love with Canada when they were on holiday and decided to relocate.

Graeme has now returned to his former trade as a pipe-fitter while Debi is currently looking after the children.

The couple’s estate agent, Glenn Jackson, of Easton Residential in Holbury, said: “Someone’s going to get a great house in a fantastic location for £100, with no legal fees or anything.”

He added that the draw would only go ahead if enough tickets were sold.

The proposed date of the draw is October 31 but that may be pushed back to allow people more time to buy tickets. If not enough tickets are sold, the draw will still take place, with the winner receiving the pot of money raised by tickets sales.

Mr Jackson said that tickets were selling well, attracting buyers from as far away as Canada, New Zealand and Australia.

  • For information on the raffle or to attend an open day, click the links on the right hand side.