Foul sight inside house for sale as housing crisis deepens in WA

Prospective homebuyers were left gagging their way through a home open in a further sign of how severe the housing crisis has become.

A dilapidated house complete with a dead mouse squashed into the carpet and syringes on the bathroom sink has been snapped up half an hour after its first and only home open.

The property in Armadale, about 40 minutes east of Perth, sold on May 31 for $480,000 with no clean-up and its backyard resembling a stinky communal rubbish tip.

The home’s sale came as yet another brutal reflection of how broken Australia’s housing market has become, particularly in Western Australia where properties were formerly relatively cheap.

And it’s not like the three-bedroom wreck at 12 Cambell Road was up for one of those “worst home on the best street” awards either.

Graffiti artists had taken liberties on fence after fence, there were front verges that looked more like car yards than residential homes, and let’s just say the neighbours didn’t exactly have a welcoming presence about them.

The poor fella was squashed into the carpet. Picture: brookomoves

It was a sight for sore eyes. Picture: brookomoves

Of course, none of these factors matter in a market starved of affordable supply where even houses that look like crime scenes attracted interest from dozens of keen buyers.

For millennials and first-home buyers it’s yet another slap in the face. If this is what your life savings can buy, you have to start asking yourself what hope is left.

Andrew Byl, one of the agents representing the property, told Brooko Moves during the property’s home open he didn’t even know there was a dead mouse inside, nor that syringes had been left in the bathroom.

“I didn’t look that far,” he said while laughing, then agreed it added to the home’s “character”.

Mr Byl was rightly confident the house would sell, rodent corpse or not.

“It will be sold in the next half-hour,” he said, as upwards of 30 groups of people poured into the property, mindful not to step on the ample junk splayed throughout it.

“Well we’ve had it on the market for a few days and the phone hasn’t stopped,” he added.

A few years ago, the same house wouldn’t been “lucky to sell for $300,000”, Mr Byl said.

Now, he claimed that if it was cleaned up, it could easily sell for at least $600,000.

The agent went on to confess he knew nothing about the home’s history, apart from the fact it looked to be “a solid home”.

Beneath a massive mound of rubbish, on closer inspection, turned out to be a backyard pool.

It was so heavily disguised Mr Byl hadn’t realised that was there either.

His projection was proved correct and the house was snapped up shortly after the inspection.

It was an unbelievably quick transaction, especially considering the house was a genuine safety hazard and had more dead animals than functional lights and doorknobs (one door was being held shut with a knotted electrical cable).

Still, properties like this hit the market almost every day across Perth as locals look to cash in on the house price boom.

Median house prices across Perth have skyrocketed to more than $700,000 and outer suburbs like Armadale, which were once considered affordable, are surging as desperate buyers fight for scraps.

The Real Estate Institute of WA recently revealed housing stock was at a record low, with fewer than 4000 properties listed for sale. This was a 40 per cent drop from the five-year average.

One of the doors was being held closed by a knotted electrical cable. Picture: realestate.com.au

On a national scale, the story’s just as grim.

CoreLogic data showed house prices in capital cities have climbed by over 35 per cent since the pandemic, while wages have barely budged. The great Australian dream isn’t just slipping out of reach, it’s now in full-blown free fall.

Young Australians have been left competing for homes with rotting carpet, graffiti-tagged fences and biohazards in the bathroom.

A full-length video of the Armadale house is available at brookomoves on YouTube.

Originally published as Foul sight inside house for sale as housing crisis deepens in WA