Now, bucking a frigid real estate market and mounting losses, the California widow is trying a different tack. She's created an essay contest and says she'll award the three-bedroom, two-bath home to the winner.
It's not a new idea.
Okamoto said she got the notion from a guest on the "Oprah" show who "sold his bed and breakfast through a contest of wit, not chance."
Meanwhile, faced with a cease-and-desist order, Sharon Kidwell of Kailua says she has stopped advertising a drawing for her posh Maunawili Estates home through the mail in Hawaii.
A recent Hollywood film featured a similar "giveaway."
Kidwell, who contends she's been unfairly singled out and did nothing wrong, said the Internet is rife with similar schemes.
U.S. Postal Inspector Byron Dare said that although he's not familiar with Okamoto's contest, giveaways operated by a private person send up red flags.
"If it's run by a private party, it's a little suspicious right away," he said. "We've been seeing these more often be cause the real estate market is kind of poor. It's not a raffle, it's a contest. If they follow all the terms in the contest and eventually award the house, it's probably OK."
Dare said his office looks for hidden qualifiers and misrepresentations in deciding if the schemes are fraudulent or credible.
To be considered an (illegal) lottery, the contest must meet three criteria, Dare said. It must involve a prize, a financial consideration and an element of chance, "something beyond the entrant's control."
"You remove one of them and it's not considered a lottery anymore," he said. "But if you make any misrepresentations, that's when it turns into fraud."
Okamoto, 49, said she came to Hawaii five years ago seeking treatment for her husband's post-traumatic stress syndrome from the war in Vietnam. Two years after they bought their dream home for $285,000, she returned to Placer County, Calif., a widow struggling to keep up with a heavy mortgage on a home she couldn't sell.
Then she saw "Oprah," saw an opportunity and saw a lawyer.She created a web page on the Internet (http://www.applied-images.com/dream home ) and began advertising her contest in California newspapers.
According to a flier from Okamoto, the 2,000 square-foot "dream home" will go to the entrant who successfully answers three questions about Hawaii and writes the best 200-word essay. Okamoto said she had received 463 entries as of Thursday at $100 a pop. She hopes to receive a minimum of 3,500 entries and a maximum of 4,000 by the end of the month.
If she doesn't, she claims she'll return the money, sans a $5 processing fee. If she does, Okamoto says she'll pay off the house, give it to the winner and set up a trust for the American Cancer Society and the Maka A Wish Foundation.
"This is my last chance," she said. "I figured I paid $27,000 in widow's pay the government was paying me, to get out from under. This way, everybody wins. If I have to give it back to the lender, nobody wins."