Temo Van Tongeren Wants to Give Away His House

I've done a bit of research about this and it looks like this type of project is picking up - 'selling' your house by running a competition.

Lots in the UK from what I can see: http://win-house.co.uk/blog/running-your-own-competition/4-costs-of-runn....

Obviously things are different over here in terms of costs to sell your home but looks like the principle is the same? I do think the idea of raising awareness for a good cause through a comp makes sense, good luck to this couple, I'll be watching this closely.

Hey I think the host was a little harsh on the couple there. Granted, the questions were legitimate and some of the answers somewhat unsatisfactory, but the overall undermining tone of the the interview went beyond what might be warranted by healthy skepticism.

Clearly, Temo's ideas need more definition. The difficulty is not to be underestimated however. What constitues a social businesses or social enterprise is a question that society is struggling to answer..What is clear however, is that there is growing interest in how such organisations might help us achieve both social and private gains, and impove upon existing models of delivery.

So, yes he doesn't quite know yet how to go about everything and situate his initiative in an orhtodox 'private sector - public sector' spectrum, but at the same time neither do you in all likelihood, and importantly, neither do a lot of other people working on the matter. So in short, maybe cut the guy some slack?

So I wish Temo and his wife the best of luck! I'm not personally enthralled by the game concept, but then that's a different matter. I hope you get everything sorted out, and if want to add your win a house competition to my website, feel free to get in touch.

Thanks for the feedback on the interview. I considered carefully what approach to take in this interview. In the end I felt the fact that Temo is asking people to give him money, and that he has said this is for enviromental projects, warranted a firm line of questioning. Temo has made a public pledge to be transparent, this justifies asking questions about the specific purposes the funds will be used for when this information doesn't appear on the website. If people enter this competition in good will, but there is a danger of it folding because it doesn't comply with the law they deserve to know this too. Community radio sometimes has to strike a balance between supporting local initiatives and applying media scrutiny. We appreciate feedback on how you think we are doing with this.

My feeling is that while Temo is probably sincere in his desire one would expect that if you are asking for peoples money for a social enterprise of the nature he is claiming (and he is hoping to raise nearly $600,000 NZ excess from this) then you'd have a much clearer idea of what you were going to fund from the proceeds and be able to articulate that cause with some finesse. His half-baked notion of some Finnish CO2 collection device just didn't cut it for me and made me suspicious that this is really just a way to sell a house in a difficult market and make a profit at the same time. For all the talk of transparency on the website and Facebook page this just doesn't add up. I'd have imagined that this would have been a priority, but it clearly isn't. For all his love of Waiheke why not identify some local causes as well; Waiheke is currently drafting a desire to become a UNESCO recognized biosphere region which could have lasting environmental gains for this island, this would have been an easy project for some benevolent funding. I think he has focused too much on the game and the prize itself rather than the outcomes and it makes me wary that he's just a real-estate agent in sheeps clothing.