Former NBA Player Dennis Rodman Offers $3 Million Home in Charity Raffle

Former NBA star Dennis Rodman is putting up his friend's Fort Lauderdale home in a charity raffle. The money raised will go to the Mission of St. Francis, which helps the homeless & addicts. (AP Images)

In today’s depressed U.S. housing market there are numerous bargains to be had out there, including some homes for just pennies on the dollar compared to what they sold at a few years ago.

But there are bargains and then there is this: How does a six-bedroom, six 1/2-bathroom waterfront home in Fort Lauderdale, Fla., complete with a chef’s kitchen, home theater, game room, office, salt-water pool, 100-foot dock, surveillance cameras and four-car garage for $30 sound to you?

That’s what former NBA star Dennis Rodman is offering via a raffle ticket at rodmanraffle.org. A $30 ticket gets you into the drawing for the home, which is valued at more than $3 million. It seems the property belongs to a friend of Rodman’s, whose real estate business has been hit very hard in this economy. The friend is going to lose the home, but this way he gets it off his credit as opposed to seeing it foreclose. So Rodman saw it as a way to help a Fort Lauderdale charity, the 40-year-old Mission of St. Francis, which provides help to the homeless as well as alcohol and drug treatment for the addicted. It is the oldest treatment center in Florida, but it, like other charities, is finding fundraising hard to do these days.

Rodman himself was homeless once and has had his problems with alcohol and drugs, so this is a way to give back as he approaches age 50. The drawing for the home is scheduled to be on Christmas Day, and the site says 300,000 tickets will be sold. The grand prize is the home (there are Rodman-autographed prizes for up to 50th place), and the winner is liable for all things relevant to taking possession of the home – i.e. property taxes, stuff like that, but it comes without a mortgage and you won’t ever beat the price.

And speaking of the NBA...
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