$29 Raffle For An Eco-Friendly Hotel In Ecuador Was Too Good To Be True

The owners of a romantic hotel in Ecuador, La Casa Verde, recently announced they would raffle off their home and business rather than selling it. The price to enter? The purchase of a $29 e-book. On top of this already amazing deal, the winner would not only adopt ownership of the business and property, but would also receive $10,000 cash to help cover the expenses of relocating.

You might ask yourself why this house was raffled at such low cost, or wonder whether it has any issues, but rest assured there is nothing wrong with it.

The sustainable "eco guest house" created by Rebecca Greenshields and her husband, Doug, has been home to the couple and their children for eight years, and they will be moving back to Australia to be closer to the rest of their family. They felt a raffle would be a special way to pass along the home that is so dear to them. Since the house was built to be as environmentally sustainable as possible, it requires minimal maintenance.

The catch, however, was that at least 35,000 e-books had to be sold in order for the hotel to be the Grand Prize. Unfortunately, when the raffle deadline closed on May 31, not enough e-books had been sold. The raffle winner still received a cash prize of "half of the e-book profits collected up until 1 hour before the draw," but the eco guest house and business is off the table. Rebecca shared with The Daily Meal that instead, the hotel will be sold at a "discounted" price of $800,000 to raffle ticket holders, with priority given to the first, second, or third place prize winners. If they all decline, it will open up to the public for purchase at an asking price of $818,000.

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