Charities tap into Sydney's property market as young buyers seek shortcut with golden ticket

Young would-be home-buyers locked out of the property market are increasingly turning to luxury home prize draws in a bid to get onto the property ladder. 

While more traditional raffles and lottos have long captured the interest and imagination of punters, charities are increasingly competing in Sydney’s hot property market; raising funds by buying homes to then raffle off as younger generations look for a shortcut to home-ownership in the face of rising prices.

“We have noticed a real shift in recent years in the type of person buying tickets in our prize home lotteries, particularly for homes in the Sydney market,” said RSL Art Union general manager Tracey Bishop.

“We are seeing more young families and young professionals purchasing tickets,” she said. “So many of them feel the housing market, particularly in Sydney, is out of their financial reach.”

And the numbers show it. In December 2016, the RSL bought a three-bedroom penthouse in Camperdown for $1,575,000.

Within three months they had sold about 2 million tickets for $5 each – totalling $10 million. One hopeful punter snapped up a record $1930 of tickets in one day.

Prize houses have only recently shrugged off their reputation as a product only retirees would try win, Ms Bishop said, with almost 50 per cent of tickets sold for the Camperdown home going to customers aged between 33 and 53. 

While a flashy beachfront residence is what you would traditionally expect from a prize house, charities are buying up different types of homes, including apartments and terraces in inner-city locations, to appeal to a wider demographic.

Another charity group, yourtown, recently snapped up a home in Rozelle it then raffled off. Its latest prize draw, released on Wednesday, is for another inner-city Sydney pad – a three-bedroom home in Newtown where the median house price is $1,385,000.

Yourtown’s ticket sales increased 5 per cent over the past five years across all its properties, with the biggest proportion of tickets now purchased by NSW residents.

“We’re talking to our supporters all the time about the areas they’d most like to be able to live in,” yourtown head of marketing and fundraising, Tracey Gillinder, said.

“When it comes to inner-city living, people are loving Sydney terrace homes, the last one we had in Rozelle was one of the most successful draws we’ve ever had.

“The properties [we are buying] are becoming more diverse, we’ve got a greater range of people interested in living in them and they’re bringing in a range of young people and young families.”

Among the young Sydneysiders trying their luck is Kieran Morrissey, who has entered multiple draws for properties in inner-city Sydney and Melbourne in recent years. 

“For the same price as a few cups of coffee you’re in with a chance to own a home,” the 28-year-old Camperdown local said. 

“I go for the metro properties instead of the larger coastal prize homes,” he said. “When you’re living in Sydney, you know how hard it is to get into the market, to get a leg up would be fantastic.”

Former Manly resident James Burry is one of the few lucky winners. He was considering moving his young family up the coast, when he won a $3.8 million beach house in Freshwater in an RSL Art Union draw last October.

“We’d been looking at moving up the coast for more affordability,” he said. “We could afford to stay here, but couldn’t afford to do all the things we wanted, while trying to get ahead. You’ve got to look at quality of life, if you’re working all the time to try pay for a house, it might not be worth it.”

The fire protection worker, who had bought about $200 of tickets in the draw, had been buying tickets for three years.

He hoped the home would put him in a better position to help his children, aged six and 10 years old, into the difficult Sydney property market when they were older.