Not all is what it seems

[Peter Parker]

An email alert came this morning in regarding a cheap house in Kalgoorlie.

Clicking on the link gave me a picture:
http://www.realestate.com.au/cgi-bin/rsearch?a=o&id=103294342

Sure it's asbestos, but the asking price ($55k) is about half what I'd have expected. It's on a good size block and rent could have been $120-150pw.

But then I wondered - where's John Street? I don't know a John Street.

And the local map doesn't know about it either:
http://www.arta.com.au/wamaps/kalgoorlie/

So I clicked on the agents site. That's weird; LJ Hooker went out of business in Kal 2 years ago and now they're back.

Anyway it turns out (assuming the agent's site is more reliable than realestate.com.au) the property is in Johns Street, Norseman.
http://www.ljhooker.com.au/property_listing.php?id=1583434&type=residential&category=buy

Norseman is a 2-horse town on the edge of the nullarbor a couple of hours down the road from Kal. It's had a declining population for years. You could once get a house for $15-30k, but it looks as if the property boom has happened even there.

So what would have been a bargain in Kal turns out to be a hovel with little prospects out in the sticks!

Has anyone actually bought a house over the internet and only realised later it was in the wrong town?

Peter

 

[knightm]

i use the internet for loads of ip research, but i still go to a place if im gonna buy there. (call me old fasioned if you want)

btw bought in kal in december, and yes 55k would be VERY cheap there now. Appears they may have had around 20-30% in the last 6 months if you go by whats on the market and asking prices versus what they were when I was over there. Perhaps the WA boom is heading there too now? I walked through 1 place asking 65k in december, total buldoze job, i nearly fell through the floorboards! that was the cheapest on the market then.

i really just bought for yeild and as a hedge against a possible US economy meltdown.