The CEO of Omaze, a company that gives away a luxury house in the UK every month, has revealed exactly how much he has spent buying up the dream properties
The man behind Omaze has revealed exactly how much he has spent buying up luxury properties in the UK – before giving them away to the public in monthly draws.
Omaze is famed for being a for-profit fundraising business where mansions in places like Devon and Cornwall are given to people who have spent as little as £10 on prize draw tickets.
Matt Pohlson, the American CEO of Omaze, used to sell celebrity experiences, but nearly dying in 2018, where his heart and brain stopped for over four minutes, inspired him to change the business model and move it to the UK.
Explaining why, he said: “It became clear we were never going to be world changing just by doing celebrity experiences because we were totally reliant on someone else for supply.”
Speaking on the Uncensored CMO podcast, he added: “We finally said where it’s really at is houses. A car can change someone’s lifestyle but a house changes someone’s life.”
He then said he chose the UK because it was a more densely populated country than the US and houses were generally cheaper.
However, the host then pointed out that the homes being given away monthly are dream-like, and he was asked whether Omaze had to buy them outright.
Answering, Matt said: “Yeah, we buy all the houses. Sometimes, we are building the houses now.
“But in all the houses we renovate the houses, or put in pretty significant changes. But yeah, we buy them all out.
“Because we offer a house every month, we’ve got to buy eight out front. Anything from three to six million pounds.”
He has given away over 40 homes in the UK so far, and explaining how much this cost, he said: “Roughly call it £180million worth of houses (and) probably £250million worth of prizes.”
If you are wondering how he affords to do this, he said the Omaze subscription revenue was “really strong” meaning there was no risk to the houses.
People who subscribe to Omaze, where they spend up to £50 each month, are automatically entered into each draw.
However, despite acknowledging that most players won’t end up winning a house, he said people are still eager to play, because a percentage of their money goes to charity.
And giving an insight into figures, Matt said: “We’ve raised £90million in the UK for charity. In the US before we moved here we had raised £200million for charities. Globally, we are over £300million we have given to charity.”
Giving an example of what this actually looks like in practice, he said: “Most people are not going to win a house, but yes, the Omaze community really does care about these tangible [charitable] projects that they do and often times it benefits their community.
“We did a house in Victoria Park last year to fund the London Air Ambulance. These helicopter ambulances that pick up 3,000 Londoners a year, so we funded that service, it wouldn’t be here without the money from the Omaze community.
“So that’s a nice loop.”