Queensland mum raffling off $1.52 million ‘pet resort’

A Queensland mum is raffling off her business for $55, describing it as a “once in a lifetime opportunity” for a family looking to make a tropical change.

A Queensland mum raffling off her $1.5 million “pet resort” stands to make a guaranteed $680,000 profit if the sale goes ahead — or a fat stack of cash for nothing if it doesn’t.

The Yapper Valley Pet Resort, about 25 minutes from Townsville, is selling $55 “tickets” to the competition in the form of online images of pets — but the property will only be handed over if 40,000 tickets are sold.

That would net a total of $2.2 million, well over the $1.52 million valuation of the total package, which includes 110 acres of land, a four-bedroom, two-bathroom home, a profitable business and $30,000 cash in the bank.

If the total isn’t reached, the winner of the raffle will instead be given half of the ticket sales — a win-win for owner and manager Natalie Giumelli, 31, who lives on the property with her two young sons.

“We looked at selling it originally and basically people didn’t have the deposit they needed, because it’s a rural commercial loan they obviously needed quite a bit more, 30 per cent and upward,” she said.

The Yapper Valley Pet Resort is about 25 minutes from Townsville.

Pets are treated to aircon, walks, play times, their own villa and Skype their owners.

Natalie Giumelli says potential buyers couldn’t come up with a big enough deposit.

Ms Giumelli was inspired by other businesses that had been raffled off in similar competitions, including a Micronesian resort in 2016, a Newcastle pub in 2017 and a Phillip Island cafe in 2018.

“We looked at that and thought it could work for us,” she said.

She insisted the $680,000 was “not exactly profit, though”. “That goes towards taxes and fees, plus marketing fees, licensing and legal fees — we’ve given ourselves that buffer,” Ms Giumelli said.

While the five-year-old pet resort business is profitable, Ms Giumelli has decided to start a new venture selling goat’s milk soap. “We’ve been trialling out a very niche farm venture and it has developed into something we really want to pursue full-time,” she said.

The raffle was originally scheduled to be drawn on June 21, but Ms Giumelli said it was now being extended to September 23 — but declined to reveal how many tickets had been sold.

“We’re not releasing numbers until we’re closer to our mark,” she said.

She said she was “confident” they would reach their goal.

“We’ve had one guy purchase nearly 100, there have been quite a few people who have purchased multiple. They still get half of all the cash (if we don’t reach 40,000), they still get a great prize.”

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Originally published as Queensland mum raffling off $1.52 million ‘pet resort’