Habitat for Humanity Australia’s cheap house campaign comes with a big catch

IF THE thought of spending hundreds of thousands on a home terrifies you, you can either stay renting or grab a waterfront home like this. But there’s one very big catch.

LIVING on the water is a dream of most Australians — but waterfront properties are usually out of reach except for the very cashed-up.

Until now.

Marketed as lakeside living at its best, this one-bedroom property will only set you back around $3000.

That’s a mortgage most people could pay off faster than a credit card.

If that doesn’t float your boat, how about this little al fresco beauty combining a fabulous open plan layout in a studio getaway.

If you’re thinking it’s too good to be true, you’re probably right because there’s one big catch, mainly because you’ll have to move thousands of kilometres away.

Oh and you won’t have access to water, electricity or services either.

The advert may look like the real deal, but there's more to meets the eye. Picture: Screengrab/Habitat for Humanity Australia.

The homes form part of a satirical website, Real Value Housing, which aims to give disheartened house hunters some light relief, but also to shed light on a serious housing crisis

of a different kind.

International charity Habitat for Humanity Australia created the site which highlights the delights of “alfresco”, and “waterfront” living that are on offer for just a few thousand dollars on the fake real estate site.

The first property, advertised as appealing to water lovers, is ideal for those wanting to wake up to a bracing sea breeze from your own private stagnant water source, while the second studio

getaway is sure to impress but should be “inspected during dry spells and daytime hours”.

But after clicking on the house of your choice, you’re taken to the real story and Real Value Housing site and everything is not what it seems.

Ideal family home? Perhaps not but this is real life for many people in South-East Asia. Picture: Habitat for Humanity Australia

Habitat for Humanity Australian CEO Martin Thomas said with average housing prices sitting at an all-time high, the fake website aimed to give house hunters a bit of a giggle.

But he was quick to point but that it also had a serious side in that it highlighted the substandard conditions millions of people lives in, right on our doorstep.

“The reality is that these ‘homes’ represent the substandard housing that condemns millions of families across Asia Pacific to live in poverty and disease without access to safe water,

sanitation or even a locking door,” Mr Thomas said.

“We are not trying to make people feel guilty or dismiss the very real housing problems in Australia. But sometimes it is good to look around at some of the challenges other people are facing.”

Mr Thomas warned with about 500 million people living in slums across Asia, the growth of large cities has created a shelter crisis which is akin to “a humanitarian crisis in slow motion”.

HFHA estimates this figure could grow to 840 million by 2025.

Mr Thomas said while it was easy to think of the problem as not ours, the fact was as a major trading partner with Australia, lack of adequate housing could threaten economic growth as well as social cohesion.

He said the fact that the median average price of a home in Sydney was more than $800,000 proved there were serious issues with housing affordability in this country, which for the same amount of money could build 400 houses in Nepal or 200 in Cambodia.

“For some people serious housing affordability is very real, but like many of our problems, it’s relative compared to others,” he said.

“We’re just asking people to think about the plight of other people worse off which puts it in perspective.”

Mr Thomas, who just returned from a trip to Cambodia, said 12 volunteers could build a house for a family in just one week, at a cost of around $3000.

Cambodian woman Hatsaveoun used to live in what's regarded as the “Bir’s Nest” a slum by the river near the Australian embassy. Picture: Habitat for Humanity Australia.

Cambodian mother-of-eight Hatsavoeun, 52, who lives with her disabled husband in Phnom Penh, moved into her new home recently.

She used to live in what is regarded as the “Bird’s Nest,” a slum by the river, a stone throw away from the Australian embassy where she and other families squatted on a vacant plot of land.

She and her family were relocated to Andong, just on the outskirts of Phnom Penh, where Habitat for Humanity helped build her a home and she now has access to services, her family’s health has improved and she even runs her own business from outside her property.

Habitat for Humanity is aiming to provide safe and affordable homes to 15 million people in Asia Pacific by 2020.

Originally published as Habitat for Humanity Australia’s cheap house campaign comes with a big catch