Pocket-sized Newtown home will pack punch for buyer
A pocket-sized Newtown property could prove to be the ultimate bargain buy in Geelong's most blue-ribbon suburb.
The $621,000 sale for the modest two-bedroom house at 16 Bond St might seem a trifle cheap, considering it close to half of Newtown's $1.15m median price.
But Gartland Geelong agent Will Ainsworth said he did the sums that show the sale represented incredible land value.
Mr Ainsworth said the ex-rental home is definitely a starting point for the first-home buyers.
It presents two bedrooms, a tidy kitchen complete with a dishwasher, and a small but updated bathroom with a shower over the bath that's accessed through the laundry.
A narrow driveway is at the side of the house, leading to a small backyard on the 202sq m block.
The aluminium clad house is close to Kardinia Park, and walking distance to the Pakington St shopping and cafe precinct.
Mr Ainsworth said the initial quoted range had to be lowered to $500,000 to $550,000 to suit the market for first-time buyers, who ultimately came to the party.
'It was hard to find comparable sales at the start to work out what it might be worth,' he said.
'We started where we thought it was and then we brought it back a little bit because the interested buyers weren't there in the price point.'
Mr Ainsworth said the auction opened at $450,000.
'I did some sums very quickly. We worked out to be around $3000/sqm and then I looked at the house next door, which they're rebuilding and about to put the slab down. They bought that around 15 months ago for $800,000, that was about $1900/sq m.
'You can look at the size of it, or the work required. But at the end of the day the local that you're buying in is premium. It's in one of the best pockets of Geelong.'
Mr Ainsworth said the buyer intended to renovate.
It was the cheapest home to sell in Bond St in five years.
'In time, people look will back and say that was a very smart acquisition.'
The block of land is essentially a townhouse site, whereas the neighbours are building a bespoke home on the larger site, he said.
Hashtags
Try Our AI Features
Explore what Daily8 AI can do for you:
Comments
No comments yet...
Related Articles
News.com.au
17 minutes ago
- News.com.au
‘You're on your own': Tradie's $17,000 scam nightmare
A tradie has been left gutted after losing over $17,000 in an elaborate spoofing scam. Bradley Turner runs a cementing company called Pure Deco and he never thought that he would become a scam victim. On June 1st on a lazy Sunday Mr Turner, who lives in Sydney with his wife and young child, received a text message that appeared to be from his bank ANZ. He believed the message was legitimate because it appeared in an already-established message chain he had with the bank. The message alerted him that his voice ID had been updated and that if he didn't request this change, he should contact the number written below immediately. The 33-year-old panicked because he hadn't updated any verifications with the bank and it was for his business account. The tradie insisted he never would have rung the number if he had just received a text message from a random number, but because it appeared to be from ANZ on his phone and was alongside other official messages, he fell for it. 'I'm pretty clued in,' Mr Turner told 'The guy made me panic. I spoke to three people, they make you panic.' Mr Turner was unaware that scammers are becoming more sophisticated and using state-of-the-art technology to 'spoof' their numbers and get into established texting threads. When the tradie rang the number included in the text, he was told that someone was trying to scam his account from New Zealand and he needed to immediately transfer his money to a new secure account. He was then sent a follow-up text with his new bank details and, once again, the text appeared on his previous ANZ text chain. From his perspective, it all sounded legit. If anything, he thought he was preventing himself from being scammed. Mr Turner transferred two separate payments, one totalling $16,941 and another payment of around $7000, to the new bank account. At first, he didn't think anything was wrong and even felt relieved that he had seen the text and been able to resolve the situation quickly. Then, by chance, a mate rang and Mr Turner told him he'd had a stressful morning dealing with his bank. When he explained what had happened his friend immediately told him to call his bank and double-check. 'I've never dealt with a scam or fraud call before. There were a couple of red flags, but of course, you don't think about it until you're finished,' he said. 'I rang ANZ and was told it was a scam. I had to report it to the police.' Even though he contacted the bank only an hour and a half after he made the transfers, it was already mostly too late. ANZ was able to stop the $7000 transfer, but the almost $17,000 sum was already with another bank. Mr Turner was horrified after realising what had happened. 'It felt horrendous. I felt like I'd been violated. You feel so violated that someone has managed to trick you,' he said. He argued that losing that amount of money is serious and can derail a person's life, saying $17,000 is 'a lot no matter who you are'. The bank reportedly told Mr Turner that there was no way to recover his money, with the tradie claiming the message was basically 'you're on your own', which left him fuming. 'They make it like you should know about this already. This (scam) was really well done and scamming is getting a lot bigger,' he said. Ultimately, he was told that, because he completed the initial transfer, it was basically on him and the money was gone. When asked about Mr Turner's experience, ANZ said in a statement it was unable to comment on individual customers. 'We always attempt to recover funds customers have lost to scams or fraud,' it said. 'However, the ability to recover funds depends on a number of factors including how quickly it is reported to us, whether they are transferred to another financial institution, and the speed in which funds are then on-transferred by scammers. In many instances, cyber criminals on-transfer funds within minutes, or use them to purchase cryptocurrency.' Mr Turner said he wants the bank to take responsibility for the fact the scammers were able to successfully get into the same texting chain and spoof their official communications. 'It came through their feed and it is so frustrating. I don't see how they can wipe their hands of it,' he said. 'If it was through a random number I'd understand.' At the end of the day, he feels ANZ should take more responsibility and he feels his trust in the bank has been broken. 'They've let me down and now they just want to palm me off,' he said. The tradie believes he isn't fully at fault because it comes down to ANZ not having the 'right security' and, as a result, there should be a way for him to get his money back. Losing the $17,000 stung badly because the money was there to pay his workers and now it is just gone. 'Things are expensive. You're trying to run a business. It was from my business account, and I have seven employees. That is a couple of weeks of wages. Do I send the boys to collect the wages from (ANZ)?' he asked. Mr Turner isn't alone. In February, reported an eerily similar story about another Aussie tradie who lost $58,000 in a spoofing scam. Furkan Colak, from Melbourne, was in the process of trying to buy a house while also saving up for his dad's knee surgery when he received a text message that looked to be from ANZ but was actually from a scammer. Mr Colak previously told that the whole experience left him 'shaking' and it has been tough to get over losing so much money. 'It comes to the point where you're almost over it and then you think what you could have done with the money,' he said.
ABC News
22 minutes ago
- ABC News
What cost of living crisis? Barr government goes for broke with revenue grab
Every Canberran could sense in February the abject implosion of the ACT's finances that apparently only dawned on the Barr Labor government sometime after its re-election in October. Only now, in the sheer breadth, size, and audacity of its lunge for new revenue, coupled with persistent deficits for another four years, can we truly appreciate the extent of its fiscal desperation. How else to explain the head-spinning array of higher fees, levies, and taxes the new ACT Treasurer, Chris Steel, has conjured in his first budget? Hiking land rates, business taxes, parking fees, and vehicle regos, while painful, are standard and obvious 'go-to' targets for cash-strapped treasurers peering at oceans of red ink on the books. Showing a flair for creativity, Mr Steel has gone so much further in his 2025/26 debut. False fire alarm activations? Ka-ching. Volunteers helping coach kids' sporting teams? A new fee. Dumping an old tyre? Up by more than 200 per cent. These charges will be annoying to many, but they pale in policy significance when compared to the novel 'health tax' every household in the territory is about to be hit with. Not that any government would use or accept the term 'health tax'; the Barr government has opted for the more banal "levy to support the public health system". Whatever Canberrans might feel about paying it — some may see it as an entirely reasonable contribution — this non-means-tested annual $250 impost is a most 'un-Labor' thing to do. It challenges our federation's compact that Medicare and federal health funding grants funnelled back to the states and territories — even if inadequate — are the bedrock guarantee of universal, fee-free access to health care in public hospitals. For ACT residents forced to pay it, the new 'tax' is akin to a compulsory 'co-payment' for hospital services. A 'co-payment' charged whether they use public hospital services or not, applied to a population already more likely to pay out-of-pocket fees if they visit a GP, with nationally lagging bulk-billing rates. Where were ACT Labor MLAs between January and the May 10 federal election when Anthony Albanese pulled out his own Medicare card, extolling Australia's unique health-funding system as "a declaration of Australian values" and railing against anything that resembled an extra payment to access services? The Barr government argues the $205 million 'tax' (the total to be collected) is temporary, conveniently expiring in the fiscal year in which the next territory election is held, in 2028/29. This assumes several entrenched flaws in the ACT's health services are resolved by then — that demand stabilises, growth in costs slows, and, most importantly, that the Albanese government succumbs to pressure from all states and territories and generously expands total national hospital funding of $34 billion per year. Chris Steel would be supremely, perhaps dangerously, optimistic if he banked on the Commonwealth suddenly coming to the rescue at a time when it's running its combined deficits of almost $180 billion through to 2028/29. The ACT's tax' also has the potential to disadvantage Andrew Barr in crucial negotiations at federal cabinet. Having uniquely and unilaterally taken the plunge into what's called 'own source' hospital revenue for the first time, why wouldn't the feds then discount the $200 million the territory's raising from whatever future offer it makes to the chief minister? In this respect, the ACT is isolated because it's unlikely any of the six states would create their own version of a hospital tax, in view of the constitutional questions it could create. An equity argument arises with NSW, too. Unless there's to be a matching increase in cross-border payments for its residents using the Canberra Hospital, aren't territory residents doing more of the heavy-lifting relative to those coming from elsewhere for treatment? If, as is likely, none of these underlying problems are resolved when we reach fiscal year 2028-29, what then? Would the next territory government have to extend the charge? Index it? Increase it? Stepping back from the Steel budget's biggest surprise on hospital funding, under the heading 'sustainable revenue,' this budget scrapes together more than half a billion dollars in new or higher taxes and charges over four years. Not all of them are applied directly onto individuals, as is the case with land rates; some go via employers (payroll tax) or companies, including telcos and electricity networks. Either way, a significant proportion of the tax hikes could find their way onto residents' bills. This budget effectively signals that we've passed 'peak cost-of-living' thinking among the politicians and treasury officials who wrote it. While inflation was sitting in the seven per cent range a couple of years back, as much as they reasonably could, governments across the land deliberately shied away from politically unpalatable revenue increases that might have pushed indebted households to the brink. In the steely resolve to go so hard in his inaugural budget, the ACT treasurer seems to be suggesting those days are over.
News.com.au
32 minutes ago
- News.com.au
Riverside renovator sells $140k over price hopes in Highton
A bidding quartet confirmed Highton's riverside pocket remains hot property with an original two-level home selling $140,000 above price hopes. The mid century cream brick house at 32 Cara Rd, Highton, was snapped up for $890,000 at Saturday's auction after four bidders emerged to secure the property. Jellis Craig Geelong agent Marcus Falconer said the 876sq m property attracted strong interest during the campaign, with plenty of potential buyers mulling the opportunity from north of the border. The property had been listed with $750,000 price hopes. 'There was great interest from Queensland and New South Wales,' Mr Falconer said. 'I think a few were looking from an investment perspective.' Mr Falconer reported the full gamut of interested parties in the property, with people also looking to renovate or knockdown and rebuild. Ultimately, the neighbourhood's residential appeal won out. 'The buyers want to renovate it as a family home,' he said. 'The underbidder wanted to a knockdown rebuild, who would be land banking for the short term. Others wanted to occupy.' As a renovation project, the house has plenty to work with, from decorative cornices offering an glimpse of Art Deco style. The house has hardwood floorboards, sash windows, including large picture windows in the main living room looking through the trees and across the river valley. There are five bedrooms and two bathrooms and an updated kitchen and dining room split across two levels. But the position is the key element that had potential buyers drooling over this property, about 200m from Barwon River parkland at the end of the street. The property is also near Highton Village shops and in the Belmont High School zone.
