Meet our August winner for Hunt for the Hundy!

Just before Trade Me Property’s ‘Hunt for the Hundy’ competition kicked off in mid-July, our winner had read a column by respected personal finance writer, Mary Holm, where she talked about someone who had started entering competitions with great success.

Scott from the Bay of Plenty remembered this when he saw Trade Me Property’s ‘Hunt for the Hundy’ competition advertised two days later and decided to do the same. In ‘Hunt for the Hundy’, Trade Me members were invited to follow a daily clue taking them to an “unreal” listing on the site. By adding the property to their watchlist each day for 32 days, they were entered in the draw to win $100k.

Trade Me Property ran the ‘Hunt for the Hundy’ competition for the first time last year which was very well received by members and the word spread. This year’s entries were up 45% at over 1.4 million with 140,000 entrants, double that of last year.

“We were blown away by the interest in Hunt for the Hundy this year. It’s awesome to see that so many Kiwi engaged with the promotion and had fun playing it with their friends and whānau. We’re also proud to be able to give away $100k to another very deserving family,” says Trade Me Property Marketing Manager, Jesse Waipara.

After a day or two of playing the competition on his own, winner Scott encouraged his wife to do it too. Their naturally competitive spirits meant they’d never give each other a hint if one of them was onto a clue ahead of the other, that wasn’t how they liked to play the game. And they each had their own techniques for finding the listing.

“Some days you could guess by just knowing the answer to the question, other days you needed to do some research,” says Scott.

“I actually really loved the game, it took a bit of effort and knowledge,” adds the small business owner, who has a long relationship with Trade Me, buying his first house, selling cars and even finding his pets on the site, as well as hiring his staff through Trade Me Jobs.

Going on Trade Me Property every day to play the competition was no chore for Scott who is a bit of a real estate nut. “I’m the kind of person that checks Trade Me Property every day to see what houses are coming on the market anyway,” he says.

One day he noticed that the unreal listing in that day’s ‘Hunt for the Hundy’ question had been watchlisted by 60,000 others so he knew he was up against a lot of people, but he was enjoying himself, and was happy to do it just for fun.

The couple both work in the family business which Scott bought a couple of years ago. They have a lot of financial pressures like many other Kiwi families in recent years, he says. His wife lost her job during Covid and has had to retrain. The couple sold their home midway through 2023, intending to rent for a year or two to free up some cash, but in January this year, renting became too hard when their landlord gave them 90 days’ notice. With pets to move and intense competition among tenants in the Bay of Plenty, they decided it would be easier to buy again.

Settling on a home they love in April, the couple have begun chipping away at their mortgage, (some $700,000 plus), and their business debt. So it’s no wonder Scott’s first response to Trade Me Property’s question on how he would spend the prize money, was to say he’d probably pay down debt. He really meant it.

“For now, we’ll be putting the $100,000 in our revolving credit account, while we take time to figure out exactly what to do with the money, but we’ll keep it separate,” says Scott.

“This money will make such a difference, it will be life changing. We do feel quite privileged to own a home but it is highly mortgaged, and the revolving credit is nearly maxed out,” says the Bay of Plenty homeowner. “Winning this prize gives us breathing room on the mortgage.”

As with anyone who has received a windfall, Scott and his wife have lots of ideas on what to spend the money on.

“It would be easy to go on holiday, upgrade the car, do some things to the house but it’s so much money, we don’t want to see it go on small things, we want to do something really special with it,” he explains.

“We don’t want to fritter it away, we want to make the most impact we can with it,” he adds.

“We would like to do something memorable with part of it, take a holiday perhaps to Japan next year,” he says. The couple are celebrating their tenth year anniversary this year.

They already donate to a number of pet charities and they’ll definitely be making a sizeable donation after this win, says Scott.

A big lesson he’s learned from this incredible experience is you have to be in to win.

“We think we’ll both keep entering competitions. We feel like we’ve done really well, it’s amazing, we haven’t ever won anything like this before. This could be just the beginning,” says Scott.