I was amused this week with this story seen on the Spanish media.  A Spanish guy of 32 years old decided to buy a flat in Madrid, confident with his new job in the estate agency industry, and with a mortgage arranged to buy his dream home in one of the most exiting European capitals, Madrid...
Unfortunately the credit crunch has reached Madrid and Spain after so many years of grow and healthy development – his job was cut.  What happens next? Well unable repay his mortgage and put an advert on Spanish newspapers to sell his flat before he is forced into bankruptcy.  This poor guy can't pay his mortgage anymore and nobody is in the hurry to buy his flat in Madrid.  After 20 years or so of permanent growth, the housing business in Spain is in free fall and so with no interest in his flat, completely desperate and in need of urgent cash to survive, he decided to create a lottery to sell his flat and to face debts.

The idea is to sell tickets of 5 euros each (3 US dollars), so you could win his flat for 5 euros.  After a few days, he has sold 1,800 tickets for a total of 64,000 euro but the final prize will be given when all tickets has been sold!

At the moment Mario the seller of the flat had a few problems with the national lottery company in Spain and has been told he will have to pay taxes on the sale of his flat.  His web site to sell the flat has now been shut down – we assume due to being on the wrong side of the law; I will inform you of the development of this story in the future!