Raffle Winner Unloads Home She Won
Karen McHale took a chance and paid $50 each for two raffle tickets in hopes of winning a home.
She won a home in Edgewater that measures over 6,000 SF, has six bedrooms and 4 1/2 baths. It’s original value was $1.2 million.
Karen and her husband live in Colorado and never intended to move to the Mid-Atlantic. She was happy with her win until she was laid off from her job a week later. Then, the burden of the house started to set in: $600 to $800 a month in utility payments and insurance and a potential tax liability of $300,000 in 2009 — all while unemployed!
She set out to sell the house at $799,000 with some interest but no takers. That dropped to $749,000 and they still had no takers.
The story has a happy ending though. She was able to unload the house, make money from it, minimize her tax liability and help out a local church.
Unity By the Bay is a church that outgrew its location in a Severna Park strip mall. They worked out a deal with McHale where they’d buy the house for $650,000, paying $450,000 in cash and then accepting a $200,000 tax deductible donation from McHale. With this deal, McHale was able to cover her tax liability and still walk away with $200,000 in cash.
Both McHale and Unity By the Bay are happy with how things worked out!
Related Articles:
Nice Price: $100 Buys $1 Million House [Washington Post]
$1.28 million home to sell for $50 [The Capital]
Source: Raffle winner sells $1.2 million home at a bargain [Washington Post]
Tags: Edgewater
- About Jesse Barron
- I am an Annapolitan and founder of the Annapolis Anchor. I love Annapolis and am proud to call it home. This great city has a lot to offer, which is why I founded this blog. I appreciate each of our readers and always strive to deliver relevant information in an easily digestible format.
Copyright © 2009 
December 10th, 2009 at 2:13 pm
Yes they are both happy…but what about the people living in Poplar Point? They pitched a fit when they built because they wanted an “Annapolis” zip code, but not the Annapolis schools.
Then they pitched a fit when they put a cell tower near them.
Then they pitched a fit when the storage place was built.
You think they are gonna be happy with a strip mall church moving into the hood?
Not to mention that the average home in that neighborhood likely sells for $1M and up. This baby just brought down the property values!
December 15th, 2009 at 1:19 am
Sounds a lot like “North Potomac,” where they split off because they didn’t want to have the name “Gaithersburg.” They thought that being adjacent to Potomac would increase the value of their homes. The opposite happened.
A good appraiser would never use a single comp to determine value. Keyword there being “good.”