More former homes of 2022’s Northern Rivers flood and landslide disasters have sold under the hammer, this time for as little as a dollar.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority has commissioned a series of ‘buybacks’ auctions to date, with more expected to happen this year and next.
The properties offered have been sold to the government through the RA’s Resilient Homes Program, having been impacted by the disasters.
Dwellings vary in size, age, style and condition from badly impacted and unrepaired to partially and fully renovated either before or since the disasters, often with insurance funds.
Buyers are entitled to the structures alone without land or infrastructure but have twelve months from the date of purchase to make arrangements for shifting them.
Buyer nabs four homes for less than $20
One astute, or reckless, depending on one’s concerns, investor bought four badly damaged properties at an auction held in Murwillumbah earlier this month.
One of the dwellings was a dollar, while the other three went for five dollars apiece.
‘They bought all the ones that no one else wanted,’ First National Murwillumbah Agent Scott Reading said of the buyer, ‘they’ve got a fair bit of land that they’re looking to put them onto’.
All up, eleven properties sold that day.
‘Nearly all of them were locals,’ Mr Reading said of the successful bidders, ‘and I think three of them were first homeowners’.
Local family buys childhood home
One sale was particularly poignent, featuring a family who managed to buy the house they had been renting when the 2022 disasters hit, the home was flooded and they had to move out.
‘They brought their kids up there, they were a young family and they were able to buy that home back,’ Mr Reading said, acknowledging the home won’t be in the same location as its original family memories.
‘Yeah, so a new block of land and give it a new lease on life,’ the agent said.
Then there was the young couple from Sydney who bought a house with plans to shift it to their Northern Rivers family farm so they could be closer to their parents.
That property had been beautifully renovated, Mr Reading said, and sold for $8,500.
Disaster survivors buy former floodplain rental
Further south in Lismore, where the floodplain continues to deplete in terms of human inhabitants, another ten properties sold under the hammer thanks to PRD Lismore.
Principal Rob Horder told Bay FM Community Newsroom reporter Emma Setterfield-Smith there were around forty registered bidders.
The highest-bid earner on the night at $125,000 was a house at 149 Magellan Street, with around five people competing to buy.
‘It had a lot of character,’ Mr Horder said, ‘it was a bit of a surprise that it made that much but obviously there was more than one person that wanted it and found that it was worth it for them.’
A few other bidders, by contrast, had probably been more opportunistic, with Mr Horder noting one man who bought two properties at $50 and $100 respectively.
‘I’m not sure if he was there intending to buy a home,’ Mr Horder said, ‘but now he’s looking for some blocks of land to move them onto’.
Others at the auction may have been there to see how the process worked and might come to a future auction to bid, he said.
‘Buyers have got to look at the cost of moving the homes, it’s important to do your research on the cost of relocation,’ Mr Horder said.
Another buybacks auction is scheduled for next Tuesday 2 December from 6pm at the Lismore Heights Sports Club.
*Mia Armitage also works at Bay FM where she leads the Community Newsroom.
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