Forget about expensive Sydney and Melbourne: The Australian town auctioning off 16 properties for as little as $5,000 (but there’s a catch)
- Auction to recoup unpaid council rates
- Blocks of land and homes in varying conditions
- Outback town is famous for its opal mines
An outback Australian town will auction off more than a dozen properties in a desperate effort to recoup unpaid council rates.
Sixteen properties in varying states of condition will go under the hammer in Coober Pedy, 850km north of Adelaide, next month, two years after another 33 were auctioned off for the same reason.
Prices start from $5000 for an 800 sqm block of land, while a three-bedroom home could set you back for as little as $30,000, depending on the condition.
Andrews Property will auction off the properties on May 3 in the town world famous for its opal mines.
Sixteen properties will be auctioned in the outback town of Cooper Pedy. Pictured is an above ground home described as ‘in need of work’
‘Under instructions from District Council of Coober Pedy, we are selling the properties by public auction,’ the real estate description states.
Properties range from blocks of land and ‘dugout’ underground dwellings needing renovations to ‘rustic’ three-bedroom homes and a high-quality commercial office on the main street, which is expected to sell for $800,000.
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Andrews Property director Warren Andrews expects the auction to attract much interest.
‘I’m expecting a lot of buyers to be external. Coober Pedy attracts a lot of interest from NSW and Victoria. It’s very cheap real estate,’ he told 7News.
‘Almost every second inquiry I’m getting across our whole group is to do with Coober Pedy auctions.’
‘I love my work in Coober Pedy because we do see buyers from all over Australia.’
Potential bidders must register by 5pm May 2, the day before auction.
The council reserves the right to withdraw any property up until the ‘fall of agents hammer’, and a 10 per cent deposit of purchase price must be payable on auction day.
Blocks of land are expected to go as little for $5,000, including this 897sqm residential lot
The local council in Coober Pedy (town pictured) is auctioning off the properties in an desperate effort to to recoup unpaid rates
The Local Government Act allows the council to conduct an auction for the sale of land for a property where rates are three years in arrears.
The council auctions the property when all debt collection steps have been used.
It comes just days after the agent sold a three-bedroom fixer-upper in the town for $38,000.
The bargain property comes without walls or windows, has exposed electrical cords dangling from the ceiling while the shed was in poor condition.
Regarded as the opal capital of the world, Coober Pedy has a population of 2,000 and is halfway between Adelaide and Alice Springs.
The town’s famous underground dwellings called dugouts (pictured) are among those that will go under the hammer
Average temperatures are 30C-plus for five months of the year while overnight temperatures in winter dip as low as 5C.
In 2021, 33 Cooper Pedy properties sold for less than $43,000 each in a furious bidding war.
The highest selling dugout sold for $36,000, while the cheapest vacant lot fetched just $1,300.
The most expensive above ground home was snapped up for $43,000.
The homes were auctioned off after their owners well drastically behind on their rates – some for 10 years – and the properties were repossessed.
Many of the properties to be auctioned off are in need of a lot of work. Pictured is a dugout previously auctioned in 2021
