- Title: AUSTRIA: Austrian millionaire raffles off his villa for charity
- Date: 15th February 2010
- Summary: VARIOUS OF INTERNET SITE "WWW.MYMICROCREDIT.ORG"
- Embargoed: 2nd March 2010 12:00
- Keywords:
- Location: Austria
- Country: Austria
- Topics: Light / Amusing / Unusual / Quirky
- Reuters ID: LVA3D1ZINOPDZ5ASFB5BW6VX2EB2
- Story Text: Millionaire businessman Karl Rabeder has resolved to raffle off his luxury villa in the Austrian Alps, worth some 1.5 million euros (2 million U.S. dollars) after deciding that wealth does not bring happiness.
Rabeder no longer considers paradise the mountain mansion, saying he wants to trade in the rich life for a simpler, more modest abode.
The 47-year-old is allowing European punters to buy a raffle ticket for the price of 99 euros ($134.8), giving them a chance to call the nearly 3,500 square foot mountain villa, home.
Until the February 28, 2010, Rabeder hopes to have sold all 21,999 tickets via his Internet site www.luxusvillatirol.at (luxury villa tyrol).
Asked what the villa had on offer, Rabeder praised the "fantastic surroundings. It is just so incredibly beautiful where it was built, above the sun drenched Inn valley. The view is fantastic," he said.
"A five minute walk takes you into the midst of the mountains, the woods. This is what I always liked best about the house," Rabeder said.
But it's not only the home in the Alps that's on the market.
Rabeder has already sold a collection of gliders and one of his cars, in a bid to have as few luxury items as possible left over.
"I realised with all the gliding expeditions which we did to southern America that there are a lot of poor people who are just poor out of the problem that they were born in a -- let's say different place than Europe," Rabeder told Reuters Television in his living room overlooking the Inn valley in the Tyrol region.
"We helped some of them, just giving them small amounts of money for making their own businesses. When we returned one year later, we got back this money, to our big surprise. So I experienced it myself that micro credits work," Rabeder said.
Once everything is gone, he plans on moving into a small, modest wooden hut in the mountains, or into a no-frills apartment in the city of Innsbruck.
"I have no idea what my life will look like but to be honest, it feels good. And there are so many interesting things coming to me, so many gifts I got since this 'outing' that I'm really happy about doing this step."
All the money earned from the villa raffle, as well as from the sales of his other possessions, will go into his microcredit charity which is set up to offer small loans to the needy in Central and South America.
Potential investors can decide how much they are willing to loan by visiting Rabeder's Internet site wwww.mymicrocredit.org.
As Rabeder pointed out, because of strict Austrian laws on who is allowed to own property, only European Union citizens qualify for the raffle to win his villa. - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
- Copyright Notice: (c) Copyright Thomson Reuters 2011. Open For Restrictions - http://about.reuters.com/fulllegal.asp
- Usage Terms/Restrictions: Video restrictions: parts of this video may require additional clearances. Please see ‘Business Notes’ for more information.