What you get for $100,000 Andrea Moss Sunday Herald Sun - Key editor
Melbourne might have a median house price of $360,000 and a median apartment figure of $300,000 but it is possible to find property for less than $100,000.
You can live in some, park your car in some, store things in others, or rent them out. One option, more a lifestyle choice than an investment option, is the bathing box.
There are still plenty around for less than $100,000 although the record stands at $185,000 for a Portsea box. Thomson Mentones Simon Bartaby is selling his familys beach box in Baupaume Ave, Edithvale for $65,000-plus (pictured above). It is due for auction on December 10.
Mr Bartaby said only residents of the City of Kingston could own the boxes and boxes were not allowed to have bathrooms or be slept in overnight.
But the box had given his family hours of fun over the past six years, from simply keeping beach towels there to hosting dinner parties, he said.
Other beach boxes on the market include ones in Mt Elizas Ranelagh Beach, $75,000, Mornington, $59,000 and McCrae, $69,000. In Rosebud there are no fewer than four beach boxes, priced from $25,000 to $70,000 and a further six that are advertised as boat sheds, with prices ranging from $38,000 to $55,000. Mornington Peninsula boxes are not permitted to have new utility connections made and you are buying a lease on the land, not the title itself.
Another sub-$100,000 option in the holiday market is the resort unit there is one with a mezzanine bedroom in the Bright Chalet Resort for $78,000 or the holiday cabin. Pisces Holiday Park in Apollo Bay is selling cabins from $64,880, plus site fees of about $3,000 per year. In Angleseas Narambi Caravan Park there is a one-bedroom cabin for only $48,000 near the river, beach and shops. MPRE has two Dromana Tourist Park properties one cabin and one caravan with annexe, each on a 99-year lease for $80,000 each.
Caravan parks can also provide long-term accommodation for people whose budgets dont extend to more expensive property.
Stockdale and Leggo Patterson Lakes Robin Allan has two such properties in the Chelsea Gardens Relocatable Home Park at 100 Broadway, Chelsea: a roomy, eight-year-old one for $84,000 (above) and a one-bedder with a kitchen and meals area, lounge and bathroom for $69,000.
Mr Allan said he had just sold a renovated relocatable home in the park for $74,000. It had two bedrooms, a designer kitchen, a renovated bathroom, a meals area and a lounge opening to the balcony. The vendor bought it 18 months ago and has made a capital gain but she put a lot of work into it. You will never get rich buying and selling these properties, Mr Allan said.
But they are an ideal alternative to, for example, retirement villages. Residents can walk to the beach and the shops and there are laundry facilities and garbage collections on site. The properties may not be rented out. Site fees are $92 per week, which covers maintenance, sewerage and water, with homeowners paying for power, gas and phone.
Then there are relocatable homes of a different kind: houses that landowners want to remove from their land and will sell to you for your own block.
Andrew Jenkins and Co has a two bedroom Hardiboard house, now in Cobram, with a lounge, built-in wardrobe, kitchen and meals area and reverse-cycle airconditioning, for $50,000 (above).
Doepel Lilley and Taylor Ballarat has a one-bedroom country-style cottage, presently in Clunes, for about $32,000. they quote removal costs of about $3,500 for a 70km trip.
Then there is that essential part of Melbourne inner-city living the car space. Car parks fall into two distinct groups: those that are in managed buildings and can be leased back to the operator for, usually, a guaranteed return and those that are not and can be used by the owner or rented out privately.
Car spaces on website www.findacarpark.com include an undercover space in Port Melbourne for $35,000 and a $25,000 one in the basement of a Windsor residential building.
But buyers who purchase a car park as an investment will need to keep in mind the new State Government tax, due to be introduced on January 1, on inner Melbourne long-term car spaces.
Another affordable property type that you cant live in is storage units.
Some are for use by individuals and others are investments offering guaranteed returns. Caroll McKeddie has some at 601 Little Collins St; agent Fabrizio Cutrona said they were for personal use only and were priced from $38,000 - $78,000.
Buyers interested in building their own house should still be able to find blocks for less than $100,000 in areas such as Melton, Wyndham Vale, Sunbury, Kinglake and also at Hidden Valley, the development of Robert Holmes a Courts former horse property, Heytesbury Estate, near Wallan.
There is even a vacant block on the market for $85,000 in Lurg Ave, Sunshine North, with council approval for a three-bedroom unit.
Other options worth considering are offices (Di baker Real Estate has a 17.5sq m office in Kew with a 9.1 per cent return for $65,000, while Stockdale and Leggo St Kilda has Bourke St, CBD, office suites starting from $39,950, with a 9 per cent rental guarantees); and retirement serviced apartments, such as the $80,000 ones Primelife has in Eagle Drive, Pakenham.
If you are prepared to go into country Victoria, towns such as Wycheproof, Birchip, Jeparit, Ouyen, Cann River, Coleraine, Hopetoun, Minyip and Sea Lake, all have medians well below $100,000, according to Valuer-General Victoria figures.