Gilbert woman pins hopes on home giveaway

 Nothing about the stucco and red tile roof of the suburban Gilbert home with neat, personal touches like wall art doubling as light fixtures screams foreclosure. Yet that’s the predicament Heather Gray finds herself in due to personal circumstances.

Instead of waiting for the approaching doomsday, however, Gray, who until recently worked for Mesa, is pulling together all her marketing and communications chops to give herself a creative bailout.

Her plan is to donate her nearly 2,200-square-foot, four-bedroom, 2.5-bath house to a nonprofit, that, in turn, will give away the house in a drawing planned for March 7. Anyone who donates at least $100 to The Murray Grey Foundation of Phoenix, which helps struggling military families, will have a shot at walking away with Gray’s house.

“I’d rather see my house go to a family that uses it than see it rot away as another foreclosure statistic,” said Gray, as she fixed a pillow in her upstairs bedroom, her “favorite” room in the house.

Gray scoured the Internet to find a charity she wanted to team with and came upon Murray Grey, which she felt was a “perfect fit,” given its target group of people to help.

“For us it was a godsend when she approached us,” said Mark Liddell, executive director of the foundation established in 2006.

Gray isn’t alone in trying to come up with ways to beat the foreclosure odds and get dinged with a bad credit history. Homeowners across the country are trying everything from raffles to essay contests, with their home as the ultimate prize. The Internet is rife with Web sites, such as the www.greatamericanhomegiveaway.com to www.usahomeraffle.com to reach out to charitable souls who, in turn, have the extra incentive to potentially own a house in the process.

Arizona has consistently been among the top three states in the country with the highest foreclosure rate. That statistic resulted last year in the formation of the Arizona Foreclosure Prevention Taskforce, an ad hoc group of people who got together to find ways to reduce foreclosures.

Andrew J. Loubert, vice chairman of the task force, said he hasn’t heard of anyone else trying what Gray is doing, but he was impressed with the idea.

“It’s an innovative, positive solution to a bizarre situation in the economy,” he said.

Gray’s friends helped her create a Web site, www.wantacleanslate.com. She plans to publicize the effort through events, including a booth at the Metro light rail grand opening today in Mesa.

A random search online doesn’t return too many examples of houses up for donation, but house raffles, for sure, are on the rise across the country, from Buckeye to Hagerstown, Md.

Complicated gambling-related laws in the state deterred Gray from going the house raffle route. That’s why she teamed up with a charity to give away the house as a donation.

Every $100 donor gets certificates of up to $500 redeemable for free gas or groceries, as part of the foundation’s regular incentive for donors, regardless of the house drawing, which is being called the “cherry on top.”

The foundation’s target is to have at least 5,000 of those $100 donations to go ahead with the drawing. Of the $500,000 raised, $350,000 will go to Gray to pay off her home loan and some credit card and student loans.

The rest will go to the charity.

The house cost Gray $256,000 in 2007, including upgrades. It was appraised four months ago at about $280,000, she said. According to the Maricopa County Assessor’s Office, the home is valued at $231,500 for 2008.

Denise Bugallo, a close friend of Gray, describes her as a dynamic person who got caught in an “unfortunate situation.”

Gray bought the house last year. She and her fiancé planned to get married and start a family but things didn’t work out between them and she was left with the responsibility for the mortgage. It soon became obvious she couldn’t afford the home on her own.

Gray has a roommate — to help offset the $1,771 monthly mortgage — but she still struggled. By March, she knew she was in serious trouble. She considered selling the house, but said that between the real estate fee and the house value, she would still end up owing at least $30,000 on her mortgage.

Meanwhile, with publicity about the giveaway trickling out, quite a few people have already donated, Liddell said. They hope to make the $500,000 goal.

If not, all the money raised goes to the foundation, but Gray walks away with nothing.

“We’re confident and planning on the drawing,” Liddell said.

“I’m not looking for any profit. I just hope to get my bills paid,” Gray said.

She hopes people will see the cause it benefits, along with ridding her of her debt. She also is bracing for some skeptics.

“People may not agree with what I’m doing, but at least I’m being creative and different instead of caving in,” she said.

If successful, Gray and Bugallo have even talked about launching the idea nationally, by working with other homeowners in trouble to help market their homes through charities.