We name the winner of the Trade Me ‘Save a Search’ giveaway

Kāpiti man, Mike, was stoked to hear that he’d won a $50,000 cash prize with Trade Me, all just for saving his search for an investment property in Kāpiti on the Trade Me app.

His first words after the news from Trade Me were, “That was not the call I was expecting, wow, thank you!”

To enter the giveaway, you had to save a search in either Trade Me Marketplace, Trade Me Jobs, Trade Me Motors or Trade Me Property on the Trade Me app during the giveaway period which finished on May 12.

He’d done everything right, but he didn’t really believe at first that he was the winner. There are so many scams out there in the world at the moment that he and his wife first of all took it all with a grain of salt, he says.

“I didn’t tell anyone straight away, we waited for a few more emails from Trade Me but I wanted to believe that it was right and kept on going,” says Mike.

After having had a few follow up calls from Trade Me he felt more comfortable.

As he speaks to us, about a week after receiving the news, Mike still hasn’t told many people, including his parents. And that’s remarkable because the likelihood is he’ll be using the money to help buy an investment property which he plans to rent to his Mum and Dad.

Mike is looking forward to being able to give them the security of being their landlord, someone who will never make them move them on.

For now, he says he’ll put the Trade Me giveaway prize somewhere he can’t touch it. “It’s the kind of thing that could just disappear. It’s too easy to make a list of all the things the money could go on and then it would all be gone,” says the Kāpiti Coast resident.

But he’s not that disciplined. “I’d like to take the opportunity to treat a few people,” he adds.

Mike and his wife are chipping away at their own mortgage and he reckons they’ll be ready to buy a second property in the next year or so if interest rates drop as expected. And this windfall may bring that plan forward a bit, all going well.

Mike’s looking forward to telling his Mum and Dad the exciting news but hasn’t had a chance to yet because they were both away over the weekend.

“It’s not something you do over the phone,” he says. We wish we could be a fly on the wall when he delivers the news!