Australia’s cheapest homes: where to buy a house for under $100,000

Want a house for less than you’d pay for a car? Find out where to get one today, and the surprising state where conditions could soon have even more dirt-cheap homes up for grabs.

Forget the 30-year mortgage, Australia’s cheapest homes are up for grabs for less than you’d pay for a car.

With prices from $35,000 to $100,000 you can get your name on the title of any one of dozens of houses across Victoria, NSW, South Australia and Queensland.

But there is a reason why they’re dirt cheap, with many of them dilapidated, some of them dangerously so, and most of them far off the beaten track.

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In one case, the floor is literally made of dirt.

Bizarrely, with the nation’s cheap housing markets heading in different directions, the most affordable options could grow in NSW even as the agents selling the cheapest homes in Victoria warn time is likely running out for options under $100,000.

Australia’s cheapest home for sale today is a $35,000 offering in the NSW opal mining hub of Lightning Ridge.

The corrugated-metal abode is wired for electricity, has water connected and while it does have a room built into it, most of the living space on offer is covered by a pair of caravans under its roofline.

FOR SALE: $35,000: WLL 16002 Lightning Ridge, Lightning Ridge, NSW.

Inside the dirt-cheap property.

With PropTrack data showing median home prices have plummeted since 2020 in many of these areas as population has waned, it’s bizarrely the cheapest addresses that can prove popular, with local agents revealing investors often seek them out for high rental returns.

Broken Hill, which hosts a number of the state’s sub-$100,000 listings today, can deliver 9 per cent a year returns when they’re rented out — among the best figures in the nation for investors.

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SOUTH AUSTRALIA’S CHEAPEST HOMES REVEALED

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The declining home values could add to the options for homes under six figures in NSW.

In Victoria, home prices have risen dramatically in the past five years in the state’s five cheapest towns.

As a result there are fewer than five houses for sale in the state right now for under $100,000, though another four have sold in the past fortnight.

North West Real Estate director John Hadley warned there might not be too many more coming up with five-figure price tags in his part of the state after Covid brought prices up for even the most affordable options in many country towns.

“Before then you could buy a house for cheaper than the car you drove to have a look at it, which did seem a bit out of balance,” Mr Hadley said.

69 McDonald St, Murtoa, is listed for sale at $75,000.

66 Phillips St, Beulah, is also seeking a $75,000 sale.

He’s currently selling a house at 66 Phillips St, Beulah, that suffered heat damage when the neighbouring building burnt down, but is still sporting a paint job courtesy of the production crew from motion picture The Dry, which used the town for filming a few years back.

It has a $75,000 asking price.

Horsham Real Estate’s Gerry Smith is also selling a Murtoa home he is describing as “completely unliveable”, and echoed Mr Hadley’s commentary that similarly priced homes were becoming increasingly rare.

The 69 McDonald St home is a short drive from Horsham and listed for $75,000.

But cheap homes in Victoria are selling fast. PRD Mildura’s Ian Miers last week sold a 20 Delahoy Rd, Meringur, property for $62,500 to a buyer who inspected it for the first time a few hours before purchasing.

The price included a 1223sq m block of land, a shed with a few beds and a couch in it, a caravan, a handful of carports and a goat named Faith.

South Australia’s cheapest residential listing at lot 400 Medway Drive, Coober Pedy, might not look like much from the outside …

… but inside it looks far, far worse.

South Australia’s most affordable option is the $42,000 lot 400 Medway Drive, Coober Pedy. The two-bedroom house on a 1128sq m plot is already partially demolished after extensive vandalism, with the most likely outcome that the residence will be gutted and refitted.

But, step up to a $55,000 budget and you could get your hands on a listing dubbed “big red”.

The lot 1856 Seventeen Mile Rd, Coober Pedy, property is a red corrugated metal shed, is classed as a one-bedroom home and contains a toilet, a caravan and more than 8000sq m of land around it.

It also comes with a dirt floor.

The pair are among the 20 odd homes for sale on realestate.com.au for under $100,000 in South Australia, with Coober Pedy the state’s capital for affordable residences as it is home to 14 for sale under $100,000.

Lot 1856 Seventeen Mile Road, Coober Pedy, is listed under the name Big Red.

Inside, the home offers space for a rustic lifestyle. Like, the floor is made of dirt, rustic.

In Queensland, the cheapest house on offer is a $40,000 offering in Daymar, a small rural town in the state’s south west.

The rundown property with up to four bedrooms, a water tank as well as pink and green walls.

It’s described in its listing as needing a lot of TLC, but with the chance to own the land at an “unbeatable price” the home is being touted as an affordable rural hideaway and “incredible opportunity”.

The home is currently marked as under contract.

But those willing to look at a caravan and attached annex could go even cheaper, with a one-bedroom caravan in need of a reno listed for $20,000 in Millbank near Bundaberg.

Not far away, in the township of Kensington, there is two-bedroom caravan with an annex up for grabs with a $35,000 asking price.

3 Waugh St,, Daymar, has seen better days — but the price is definitely right at $35,000.

3/61 Takalvan Street, Millbank, has an asking price of just $20,000.

But with fewer than 20 houses for sale across the state under $100,000 today, it’s clear how far Queensland’s housing market has come.

PropTrack data shows that 30 years ago the Greater Brisbane median house price was just $114,000.

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Originally published as Australia’s cheapest homes: where to buy a house for under $100,000