Here’s a property deal that’s out of this world — buy land on the moon

THINK property prices are sky high? Looking for a deal that’s out of this world? How about a block of land for just $15? There’s just one catch.

THINK Adelaide’s property prices are sky high? Looking for a property deal that’s out of this world? How about a 4000sq m allotment for just $15 ... on the moon?

It’s a property sale, but not as you know it.

Subscribers to Adelaide’s Living Social deals have been offered the opportunity to purchase land on either the moon or Mars at drastically reduced prices.

Savvy investors can currently purchase a 0.4ha block either on the Moon or Mars for $15, instead of the usual $30.

This equates to 3.75 cents/sqm.

0.8ha blocks are selling for $29 (3.6 cents) and 1.6ha blocks have been dropped to $49 (3 cents/sqm)

If that’s not quite big enough for your hobby farm, you can even buy a larger 3.2ha of land for just $89 (2.7 cents/sqm).

And because owning your own island is so last year, for $250,000 you can own the entire asteroid Pluto. (Remember Pluto? It used to be a planet ...)

The allotments are available through The Lunar Embassy, an international company which, according to its website, has been selling extraterrestrial property since 1980 due to a loophole in the 1967 UN Outer Space Treaty.

The Lunar Embassy says it was the first company to stake a claim to the land on those planets, and are the only company in the world with a legal basis and copyright for sale of lunar and other extraterrestrial property within our solar system.

The company also sells land on Mercury, Venus and Io.

Each purchase comes with the deed of the property and a declaration of ownership filed with the United States, The USSR and the United Nations.

According to The Lunar Embassy’s website, the title deeds can be passed to family members in an inheritance.

Real Estate Institute of South Australia chief executive Greg Troughton said the land sale was a great novelty, but little more.

“In the eastern suburbs land can cost you between $800 and $1200/sqm, probably $800 to $1000 in the west, so this could be the best thing I’ve seen in terms of housing affordability in a long time, but it is pure novelty — I can’t see it as anything more,” Mr Troughton said.

“Through this a South Australian can buy property without having ongoing land tax, a big stamp duty payment upfront and the emergency services levy chopping and changing each year, so it sounds like a good idea to me, but it’s absolute pure novelty.”

On the downside, moon allotments are approximately 384,400km from the tollgate, Mars properties are more than 225 million km from Jetty Rd’s shops, cafes and restaurants; and the journey to Pluto, some 7.5 billion km from Earth, has not been made any quicker by the duplication of the Southern Expressway.

Originally published as Here’s a property deal that’s out of this world — buy land on the moon