Couple wins lottery, can buy $1 million house

Tuesday, February 21, 2006 posted 12:27 PM EST

SAN RAMON — Scott and Nicole McCaughin of Alamo just won the lottery, but instead of receiving a big check they are writing one.

The couple took a different kind of gamble in January, along with about 60 other prospective homebuyers, and won the opportunity to purchase a

$1 million, 3,000-square-foot house at Shapell Homes' posh Terravista development.

Scott, who is in his mid-30s and works in law enforcement in the East Bay, grew up in Los Angeles and while in high school moved to the Bay Area with his family. Nicole, also in her 30s, works as an emergency room nurse.

"I've owned a few houses before, and I've lived in San Ramon before," he said. "We moved to Alamo into an older home. It had a lot of charm, but charm gets old fast. We both have stressful jobs, and we wanted to spend our time off with the family (not making repairs on the house)."

While numbers released last week indicated a slowdown in the Bay Area housing market, some Bay Area developers continue to see soaring demand for their properties and often resort to a lottery system as the best way to sell them.

Shapell spokesman Gary Marsh said developers moved to a lottery system to avoid unnecessary animosity between competing homebuyers.

"People would spend the night, get into fights," Marsh sad. "By far, the lottery process is the fairest."

The 78-house Terravista development is a small part of Gale Ranch — a master-planned community still in construction that is nestled in Dougherty Valley,

Related Links
	California Lottery Results
	Search Past California Lottery Winning Numbers