Let’s say you’ve got $50k, maybe you’ve inherited, maybe you’ve won big on the horses or doggies. Maybe you’ve found a case containing 50 thousand of the green-not-really folding stuff (it’s polymer after all, it doesn’t really fold, and 50 thousand of them are definitely not going to fold).
But I digress, let’s say you have $50k or so and want to turn that cash into something physical, something wholly physical in one big chunk.
You could buy a vehicle. There’s plenty that you could buy at that price and they will all universally depreciate immediately after you hand over the not-folding stuff.
Cars are quite a poor investment.
Although you can enjoy it on a daily basis. Unless it’s a classic car, then you probably won’t want to enjoy it on a daily basis.
So, how about your own piece of land, house or other. A piece of land to call your own. Impossible, perhaps, yes in the inner city, the inner suburbs and the outer suburbs. But if you look a bit further out (or rather a lot further out). Then, maybe you’ll find something.
Going to realestate.com.au (or Domain.com.au) and putting in $50k (the lowest amount it’ll allow) into the max price field and selecting House and Rural from the property type menu reveals 119 total properties for Victoria (the state I live in).
Side note: I’m not including stamp duty (also known by the State Revenue Office as “land transfer duty”) in the $50k price range because it’ll be just below $1000 at $950 and you’ll need around $1k to $2k factored in for lawyer’s fees and other things like that.
Now, first thing to realise. If you’re looking at property with a structure on it, I’d optimistically call some of these structures “houses” but some aren’t, if you’re looking for properties with structures you’ll get less land and they’ll be less impressive than the land-only properties.
One other thing to realise is, unless you have a good knowledge of country towns, you will spend a lot of time zooming out on Google maps trying to work out where a town is.
The first house that turns up in the search, well the first probably liveable house is 6 Coghill Street Manangatang Victoria 3546. The first question is probably ‘where is Manangatang?’. According to Wikipedia it’s a remote town in north-west Victoria. It’s about an hour and 45 minutes to Mildura or an hour to Swan Hill.
So what do you get for your $49,000?
2 bedrooms, 2 bathrooms, 1 lock up garage.
it’s not awful. It’s dated and it is probably made out of asbestos (this isn’t really an issue unless you start breaking it up).
This could be a good place to buy, the town has a hospital and a school, it’s got a pub and a post office. It’s a Victorian country town, except it’s got the benefit of a hospital and Primary to Year 12 school. The town also has a (heated) swimming pool. Given its population of 480 it’s somewhat surprising.
It looks to be a grain farming community judging by the silos.
Next up is 51 McCoy Street Eddington Victoria 3472, also for $49,000 is described as “renovate or detonate”.
You could, if you were drunk and very optimistic live here.
Once again in the ‘where is this place’ game Eddington is according to Wikipedia a small town on the Loddon River in Central Victoria.
The town is practically non-existent as a ‘town’, and has a population of less than 100. Most notable thing the town has appears to be the river and the golf course.
It’s about 170 km or around 2 hours to Melbourne, so it’s close..ish.
Now to round off these houses are structures which aren’t houses, but are interesting enough that you might want to spend some cash on them.
Two are former churches and one is a former Masonic hall.
63 Main Street Lalbert Victoria 3542
3 Roberts Rd Woomelang Victoria 3485
30 Harriett St Toora Victoria 3962
Lalbert and Woomelang both are churches.
63 Main Street Lalbert Victoria 3542 looks to be in pretty good condition, priced at $45,000. It’s a weatherboard single room church. “Formerly St Andrew’s Anglican Church ” It’s got 2 front rooms and 2 smaller rooms with an outside toilet block and a lot of wood paneling.
Now onto ‘where is Lalbert?’, it’s 45 kilometres or around half an hour to Swan Hill.
It’s got what appears to be a pub and maybe a petrol station, and of course grain silos.
The benefit would be that it’s not far to the next sizeable town Swan Hill.
Next up is 3 Roberts Rd Woomelang Victoria 3485, priced at $29,000.
This does not look like a very good buy. Someone, the owner I presume as they’re selling it themselves has had a go at renovating it, with half-stripped of paint boards in the interior and exterior. According to the listing it is an “Ex St Georges Church of England , built 1911 and is a federation carpenter gothic style church”.
Woomelang, in our ‘where is it in relation to other stuff’ game is about a hour and a half from Swan Hill. According to Wikipedia it’s a town in the Mallee region of Victoria. The town appears to have a general store, and that’s it.
Finally, the Masonic Hall.
30 Harriett St Toora Victoria 3962, this one doesn’t have a price, just “offers invited”, so it could be over the $50k limit and I wouldn’t have included it in this list, except it’s somewhat interesting and is probably the best maintained out of all the properties thus far.
Toora is 50 kilometres from Leongatha around 40 minutes from it.
But it’s got enough shops to not be remote, a Foodworks, Bendigo Bank, newsagent. It also has a primary school and pool.
The benefit of this structure is it does have all the facilities to make it a house. It’s got a kitchen (albeit a hall-style one), a bathroom and two large rooms, and it’s a unique building.
Moving on, what if you want land?
You’re in a much better position to get land for $50k. So I’m going to be a bit more picky as there’s 643 results for land, acreage and rural in the realestate.com.au search. So let’s say you want something a bit rural and nature related, maybe a view, maybe something in the forest, something without many neighbours.
Even narrowing it down to this you end up with a huge list of possible properties, so I’ve narrowed it down further. The following four properties are at the most $40k. They are all in the mountains near the alpine region of Victoria or near the border. I’ve narrowed it to this because well, it’s a nice region of Victoria.
To begin, 5010 Great Alpine Road Ensay Victoria 3895 priced at $39,000.
It looks rather nice. according to listing it’s “surrounded by running water on three sides by the Little River and the Tambo River”. A perfect getaway spot with plenty of room at 3900 m². Ensay has a winery and also a pub. It’s 80 kilometres from Bairnsdale.
Next is the most expensive block at $40,000.
558 Combienbar Road Club Terrace Victoria 3889
It’s got a less space to 5010 Great Alpine Road at 2241 m², it backs onto a single creek. Club Terrace doesn’t have a Wikipedia page.
It’s about 60 kilometres; around 45 minutes to Orbost, which would be the nearest sizeable town. As Club Terrace exists more as a region. You reach it off of the Princes Highway.
The listing also states “includes three caravans”, which I’d count as a negative. There also appears to be shed on the site as well.
2692 Bullumwaal Road Bullumwaal Victoria 3875 is priced at $35,000 for 1288 m² of land.
This property is much closer to Bairnsdale at 28 kilometres, around 35 minutes. It’s reached by a long dirt road.
Finally the cheapest at $19,000. 17 Dowling Street Bendoc Victoria 3888
This is the least isolated block / private block as it appears to be within the township of Bendoc.
Not that Bendoc is busy, there is neither a Wikipedia page nor a Google Street View of the location. According to Publocation and Gday Pubs there is a pub in Bendoc - the Commercial Hotel.
The next closest town is Delegate, New South Wales. Yes, Bendoc resides quite close to the New South Wales border. Delegate is only 18 kilometres away around 20 minutes. Delegate isn’t a huge town, but there’s a pub and general store. Unfortunately there isn’t a Victorian option, all the towns larger than Bendoc are at least an hour and 50 minutes away. Being Cann River or Orbost.