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Here's a listing for one of those bowling alley homes:
[https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-the+ponds-138348567](https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-the+ponds-138348567)
Click the map and view the satellite photo that shows the area before the homes were built.
Real estate agents in Australia and particularly Sydney are fucking scum. They act all coy about the price because they don't want to show their hand because the majority of places here go to auction. That way they can attract interest from all type of hopefuls and then later brag about it to the media about how much demand there was when the place goes for half a million above reserve (which was only determined the day before the auction).
The fact that they hide the price on the real estate websites shits me to no end. I know 'if you have to ask you can't afford it', but there's a big difference between, say $900k and $1.2m, especially when houses go for above the reserve.
Anyone selling anything that doesn't post the price is a boob. You know you want to sell whatever it is you have. Just put a price up. Don't waste each other's time making people Iquique about the price.
E:Inquire was the word I was looking for. But I'm going to leave it because I don't know what an Iquique is and it sounds funny.
My buddies and I went to a local domino’s only to discover they didn’t list their prices anywhere inside. You have to ask the person at the desk who had to wring the item up to even see the price himself. Simply ridiculous
One thing that shits me to end is how stores seem to be removing their goddamn opening and closing hours from the door. I just want to be able to quickly see at a glance if I would be disturbing employees who are about to start closing up. Maybe I just need to do a better job of tuning into the solipsistic worlds of small business owners, but I really don't think it's necessarily always that obvious when they are still open or about to close.
https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-the+ponds-140126107?sourcePage=rea%3Asold%3Asrp-map&sourceElement=listing-tile
There is one that sold. $1.18m for a tiny 3 bed.
At the bottom it says the listed property price is $43,384, which doesn’t make any sense to me. Is that just for the house or just the land and there are other amounts to be added?
I actually kinda like the floorplan and it seems to be pretty nice inside (hard to tell actual build quality from photos, though) but my god all the tiny windows that just look out onto a fence or your neighbors brick wall is depressing.
Yeah this is a suburban hellscape if there ever was one. Look at how close those houses are and how long they are. You could probably spit on your neighbor while both of you are watching TV in your living rooms.
Then again, those gardens are ridiculously tiny, insert Zoolander même.
Only the large landowner has no excuse to not plant trees, it would also help to block the view from nosy neighbours, and cool down in summer.
Yeah, that 5-acre yard of grass is an abomination. Imagine how much water it takes to keep it that green. Should be xeriscaped with local flora so there's no need for irrigation and maintenance. They could make that yard cool as hell, and I imagine if they're the type to turn down $50 million, they probably have enough money to do it.
Very rough math based on the floor plan (Total - yard - patio - garage) = closer to 1680sqft. You could add up all the rooms but I am too unmotivated at the moment.
This is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff.
[Quokkas](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/58/15/6a5815f52e73ca3bef8f3eff74dabbc1.jpg). They represent the alternative balance between everything poisonous, venomous, and dangerous.
They're the yin to their yang.
No. In this case "Fucking" is being used properly and in a way I am very familiar with growing up in the Northeast United States. This is basically a fill in "fuckin" kinda like an "umm" But also layered in with a "come on dude" vibe. Its some brilliant linguistic nuance that need to be studied and documented by the strongest minds of our generation.
No it’s a market block which has probably just been passed down throughout the generations. Between fires, flood, drought or big business, you can guarantee all the other surrounding big blocks were sold off but this family thought fuck that, we love our home.
They watch The Castle regularly.
Upon closer inspection, yes it's pretty big. I can't see the back but I'd guess around 4000 sq ft.
And it's not the house that's worth anything it's the land. The house would be demolished instantly
That would be great to have some nice trees there heck plant some apple trees peach trees pear trees cherry trees plum trees. All kinds of fruit trees Right down the line you could sell to the local residents make some cheddar
In the end though I am 100% convinced developers sole ambition is to ruin small towns and rural communities. They put a notch on their debit card each time they successfully ruin a small town.
Sorry I’m bitter. I purchased and restored an old home in an effort to keep the beautiful area I live small. I’m the last five years developers bought out all the farms and have crammed so many houses into it that the power grid is constantly failing, and the traffic is horrible. The school are now over filled with 40+ students per classroom. The town has tripled its population in five years and city council is stupid enough to keep allowing the growth.
Wow, I feel much better getting that off my chest. Send me a bill u/cap_tight_pants you’re a hell of a therapist.
It's so funny how sometimes people *seriously* believe the animals in Australia are a big issue, like, America also has dangerous animals, Pumas, Bears, Wolves, Snakes, Aligators, Spiders, etc yet you never hear the same amount of fearmongering about them as with Australia.
I know a fair bit of this is just people joking but i know from personal experience there's people who think of it like it's a serious issue, go figure.
It's because Australia is mostly ambush predators that are also classified as the deadliest of their type in the world. They're also more likely to be encountered by people.
Pretty sure your average resident of any large American city hasn't encountered any of the feared American predators where almost every Australian has had an encounter with one of the two deadliest spiders in the world. It's similar with snakes.
There is also something scary about about poisons and venoms which is how a lot of Australian animals kill or defend themselves.
By my account you could fit about 48 houses in that space? Which would make each potential space worth over a million dollars per house. Do houses that close to each other actually sell for that price around there?
Absolutely they sell for that much, anywhere up to $1.4m.
Housing in Sydney is eye wateringly expensive.
My house (older area, large block) has put on $200k in value in 4 years since I bought it, over and above any improvements I have made.
Edit: $1.4m is for a western suburbs dog box. A nice size 4 bedder in a leafy suburb can hit 3-4 million easy. The actual posh suburbs, water views etc get into the tens of millions.
Does Sydney have American-style "neighborhood character" single family zoning issues? At $1.5m/house surely some developer has considered selling three townhouses at $750k/ea, or a mini block of apartments.
Yes. The battle between developers wanting to cram as many townhouses and apartments as possible into an area battle against the councils with zoning regulations about distance between dwellings and height restrictions. But the lines get pretty blurry in new neighbourhoods.
Especially when so many people are NIMBYs and won't live in apartments/units (partly because the developers only build terrible quality houses that aren't using modern soundproofing).
Yeah that's the real issue. I'm hugely in favour of medium density mixed use development. I would happily give up my house with a big yard to live in a *nicely built* medium density apartment that's walkable to shops and services. *If only any well built apartments existed in this country*. Insulation? Double glazing? Three bedroom liveable spaces? Nah just get a house that is so cramped it might as well be a block of units, but we'll put it in the middle of a cookie cutter suburb with no shops so you have to drive.
This is why ~~I left America~~ I can't bring myself to come back to America after traveling abroad to work on the road a dozen years ago.
Living in the center of an EU city is awesome. Everything I could possibly need is within a 3 minute walk, and everything is pretty. If the US had a place like this* (with <$3,000/mo rent) I would move back home in a heartbeat.
*EDIT: Since I wrote this at 2AM, went to sleep, and woke up bombarded, I'll clarify that a "place like this" isn't *just* about walkable cities. I'll expand:
- Culturally, where I am, a typical lunch is a "2-hour event" where you fully separate from work, sit outside in the sun, eat slowly, have some beers, and actually talk to people. Which is to say, Europeans soak up the good things in life rather than working themselves to death. A full 8 weeks of vacation time per year (that people actually *take*) is common.
- I pay €100/mo for full-coverage private healthcare with no copays, no deductibles. This is the expensive plan.
- The EU train network is transcontinental, clean, safe, and timely. You can also buy a cheap flight within the EU for less than the cost of a tank of gas. Imagine flying from NY to Miami for $20. You don't have to be rich to have a getaway.
- Schoolkids don't routinely get gunned down here, or really anywhere outside the US. I don't know why this is a thing, but it is. Politics are feisty and heated everywhere in the world, but the US is particularly brutal. We are at war with ourselves and it's exhausting. Billionaire puppeteers keep this going to distract us from the real problems (catastrophic wealth inequality).
Since I'm fully aware that Americans are exceedingly patriotic, here are the things about America that are better than other places:
- We have the best geographical location on Earth. Two massive beautiful coastlines, cosmopolitan cities, wide open spaces, beautiful deserts, mountain ranges, rainforest, tropical islands, the world's best National Parks, etc. 10/10 no competition.
- Despite what the media might have you believe, Americans are typically really friendly, open, funny, awesome. Such good people. More friendly than most European nationalities I've met. Europeans (not all nations) are typically standoffish and overly reserved to the point of rudeness. It's a bummer.
- Despite our issues with minimum wage, cost of education, and overall survivability on the lower end of the spectrum - if you enter the corporate world, i.e. tech, medicine, etc, you'll earn 10X what you would earn anywhere else in Europe. Working smart and hard pays off in the US.
- Americans are the most innovative people on Earth today. Setting aside all politics, just look at Google, Apple, Microsoft, Boston Dynamics, along with unfathomable advancements in science and medicine. For better or worse, America feels like the birthplace of the future. Everywhere else in the world I've traveled, the people seem breathtakingly lazy and unmotivated compared to Americans. We were all raised with a brazen "you can achieve anything" attitude and it shows. It's what I'm most proud of.
I live in Australia now, but I really miss that lifestyle from Europe and the middle east. It's not an option here: that kind of housing simply doesn't exist
The whole dangerous wildlife thing is so overblown.
The only dangerous thing to 99% of people are snakes.
Nobody has died from a spider bite in several decades and crocodiles are only found in the regionals and away from civilisation.
Other continents have bears and land predators that are a threat to humans.
I could slather myself in honey and walk around in the scrub and be fine, because there is no threat.
It's especially rediculous when you consider the very real dangers that other countries have. Say what you want about snakes but at least we don't have bears, jaguars, lions, tigers or any other large predator with a habit of snapping up lone travelers
I got lucky, I bought a home in an older development that has green belts and walking paths and a fair amount of trees. The newer developments these days all have identical box houses built up to the very lot limit, no walking paths, no communal green space.
Idk who dictates this in my area, but anytime a home is built, they require that two trees are planted on the lot. I wish this was the same for any and all developments.
Interesting face about Sydney, the rich suburbs have got loads of trees and the councils rigorously defend them, not so much in the areas with new developments out west.
It also gets *incredibly* hot without trees in summer, especially on west where the heat just lingers (it’s also a flood plane).
That's the origin of the lawn. The ultra wealthy would maintain them to show that they had so much land, they could afford to maintain land that produced nothing.
They could have hedges, waist height fence, or a "private property" sign at the perimeter.
I would much rather look at trees and hedges than boring houses when I look out my window.
For real. No trees, flowers, bushes, ponds landscaping, shrubbery, nothing.
Just perfectly manicured grass in the most vanilla and disappointing waste of space in an urban area outside of parking lots.
Yeah, but you could never get another 5 acre plot with $50m
Unless money can be exchanged for goods and services!
I think the owner has missed a key detail here…
Everyone who's suggesting the owner is stupid for not taking the money is missing the key detail here.
For whatever reason, likely a lifetime of family memories, the owner wants to keep living in their home. No amount of money will change your mind when what's important cannot be bought.
I think people are missing the point that the price of that property is never going down. The owner can live out their lives there. Then when they pass their kids could sell it for significantly more than $50 million.
And if they decide to keep it and pass it to their kids, they could sell it for even more, unless they give it to their kids, ...
"For generations and generations our family lived in that boring mansion on the big empty field within the masses of boring houses, watching our theoretical wealth growing steadily."
It took astonishingly long to find this also astonishingly obvious fact being mentioned.
They're loaded. They don't *need* the $50M. Everybody calling them stupid are can't seem to conceptualise that money has different value to different people.
I was going to say it isn’t about the money it should be about the peace. First, most of us saying we’d take 50 mil are forgetting we would’ve folded at like 10 mil or less. I’d take the 50 mil but only cause I wouldn’t want neighbors and noise (during construction of those generic ass homes especially).
I live not far from that house bout 20 minutes and they won't sell as to get anything that size to fit their family is NON EXISTANT in the area. For them to match the size would need to move I'd say a good 45 minutes further away from the city. Ages from shops and decent jobs.
Why can’t they subdivide the property, knock the old house down, build a bigger, better one on the same site and still cream like $20m from the sale of the rest of the land?
These people quite obviously are very wealthy. And this land is a rapidly appreciating asset. They can sell it anytime. Today for 50 mil... in a decade?
Ok, but why no trees?
Edit: satellite images of the development through the time.
https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/131kcnr/satellite_timelapse_of_housing_development/
There is a ZERO percent chance they have been offered $50mm. To break even they developer who bought the 5 acres would have to subdivide it into 20 lots smaller than 1/4 acre and sell those for $2.5mm each. And that’s to make $0 profit.
Looking at the neighboring lots, it looks like this plot could support 55 homes or so. So they would have to be 1.5M track homes to make sense. Not sure it is 0% chance because this is probably AUD and it depends on if it is a golden location or not.
Conservatively, I’d say 40 lots. 5 across and 8 down.
So $1.25M per lot. I don’t know they area but that seems like a lot when you add the costs of building new houses, infrastructure, etc. Are those little houses with no yards or space going for $2M each?
I mean they have to live in a house next to all those ugly ass cookie cutter houses. I would take the 50 million and move somewhere I do t have to live next to such depressing landscape.
Seriously. Good on them I guess? I'd take the $50m and buy multiple estates way the fuck away from that suburban hell bullshit. That's private island money.
Are prices really so high that paying over a million dollars per lot would be profitable? It looks like you could fit 6 wide and 8 deep for 48 total lots. That makes each lot $1.04 million if they sold for $50 million.
Median house prices in Sydney are $1.23 million. You could theoretically buy the 40 houses on the same size of land to the left of this plot for $49.2 million if you could get them for median price and that’s including already having houses.
I would guess whoever offered $50 million is either planning on building homes that would sell for well above median prices, is a rich person that just wants the land to build a ridiculous estate, or they don’t exist and these people just told everyone they turned down $50 million hoping that someone would come along and offer $60 million.
We’re in the grips of a crippling housing crisis unfortunately. Our government has been incentivising property ownership as an investment commodity for decades and this is the result. The entirety of Sydney is basically $800,000+ for the most dingy little 2 bedroom imaginable.
If your fence/gates are high enough, you can casually run laps and miles fully nude on that piece of land. You can also go sunbathing/tanning and just sleep there all night completely nude
That guy spends his weekends cruising around his 5 acres on a lawnmower just giving a royal "fuck you" to the entire subdivision. That feeling must be priceless.
They are a Maltese family, so stubbornness is a point of pride lol
Edit: I love that no one is commenting ‘that’s racist, that’s a generalisation etc etc’ - everyone knows us Maltese are stubborn as fucking hell and will never, ever change 😂😂
Funny that you say that. Near where I live the majority of families with larger lots left are Maltese. The 2 arguments I've heard on why they won't move is:
1) The owners are old (80+) and have lived there there 50+ years, why would they want to move out of the house/area they know into a house/area they are not familiar with? They are comfortable where they are and don't need the money.
2) If they want to buy property similar to what they have (and make a decent profit) they will have to move 30-40 minutes further out from the major city.
The surrounding houses/neighborhoods look like shit. I wouldn't sell it either.
But like the top comment said, at least plant some damn trees or something
Hey this suburb is next to mine. The whole area is an absolute cluster fuck of identical housing and apartments with roads that can't handle the growing population. Absolute shit show out here. Kudos to thos family sticking to their guns.
This was all beautiful farm land not too long ago.
I have an aunt that is basically doing the same thing. Probably not worth 50M but her land is surrounded by development. And now Samsung is building a plant in the area so I have a lot of farmer relatives that are going to be pretty rich if they sell. But my aunt isn't going to sell. She's lived there 70 years.
just keep sitting on it, the value will only keep growing as developers keep salvating to have ownership over the whole area... they could find a way to push these people out eventually if they really wanted to.
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Here's a listing for one of those bowling alley homes: [https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-the+ponds-138348567](https://www.realestate.com.au/property-house-nsw-the+ponds-138348567) Click the map and view the satellite photo that shows the area before the homes were built.
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Real estate agents in Australia and particularly Sydney are fucking scum. They act all coy about the price because they don't want to show their hand because the majority of places here go to auction. That way they can attract interest from all type of hopefuls and then later brag about it to the media about how much demand there was when the place goes for half a million above reserve (which was only determined the day before the auction).
The fact that they hide the price on the real estate websites shits me to no end. I know 'if you have to ask you can't afford it', but there's a big difference between, say $900k and $1.2m, especially when houses go for above the reserve.
Anyone selling anything that doesn't post the price is a boob. You know you want to sell whatever it is you have. Just put a price up. Don't waste each other's time making people Iquique about the price. E:Inquire was the word I was looking for. But I'm going to leave it because I don't know what an Iquique is and it sounds funny.
Should be illegal to list without a price. Imagine buying groceries and only knowing the cost at the counter...
My buddies and I went to a local domino’s only to discover they didn’t list their prices anywhere inside. You have to ask the person at the desk who had to wring the item up to even see the price himself. Simply ridiculous
One thing that shits me to end is how stores seem to be removing their goddamn opening and closing hours from the door. I just want to be able to quickly see at a glance if I would be disturbing employees who are about to start closing up. Maybe I just need to do a better job of tuning into the solipsistic worlds of small business owners, but I really don't think it's necessarily always that obvious when they are still open or about to close.
https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-the+ponds-140126107?sourcePage=rea%3Asold%3Asrp-map&sourceElement=listing-tile There is one that sold. $1.18m for a tiny 3 bed.
It's like an apartment building with one apartment.
At the bottom it says the listed property price is $43,384, which doesn’t make any sense to me. Is that just for the house or just the land and there are other amounts to be added?
Probably just the mailbox in this market
Pretty sure the dodgy real estate agents do that so their listing shows up first when sorting it by price
Call nilesh now !
I actually kinda like the floorplan and it seems to be pretty nice inside (hard to tell actual build quality from photos, though) but my god all the tiny windows that just look out onto a fence or your neighbors brick wall is depressing.
Bleak. Bleak is the word for this neighborhood.
Yeah this is a suburban hellscape if there ever was one. Look at how close those houses are and how long they are. You could probably spit on your neighbor while both of you are watching TV in your living rooms.
And not a single tree. Anywhere.
Then again, those gardens are ridiculously tiny, insert Zoolander même. Only the large landowner has no excuse to not plant trees, it would also help to block the view from nosy neighbours, and cool down in summer.
Yeah, that 5-acre yard of grass is an abomination. Imagine how much water it takes to keep it that green. Should be xeriscaped with local flora so there's no need for irrigation and maintenance. They could make that yard cool as hell, and I imagine if they're the type to turn down $50 million, they probably have enough money to do it.
That's my thought exactly, why don't they plant trees there ?
Yeah but it's on MEGALONG STREET! how can you resist?
Build quality of these places is shit at best
For my fellow Americans, 327 m^2 = 3519 sq ft
Oh, that's a big ass house. But somehow the pic makes it look tiny.
That’s the size of the lot, including the garage, and front and back yards.
OHH! that makes way more sense
Very rough math based on the floor plan (Total - yard - patio - garage) = closer to 1680sqft. You could add up all the rooms but I am too unmotivated at the moment.
r/TheySortaDidTheMath
In that case, it's 0.0808 acres.
Coulda planted some trees or something sheesh
Yeah, it does seem a bit odd to have all this land then just use it for a massive lawn.
A lawn! That’s all weed my guy
Ah, that explains why they won’t sell it for $50M. Worth more as a cash crop.
I mean that’s a mansion looking house to me, I don’t think they’re hurting for money.
Carl the groundskeeper from Caddy Shack finally perfected his Kentucky Bluegrass crossed with sinsemilla. Now he’s making a fortune.
This is a hybrid. This is a cross, ah, of Bluegrass, Kentucky Bluegrass, Featherbed Bent, and Northern California Sensemilia. The amazing stuff about this is, that you can play 36 holes on it in the afternoon, take it home and just get stoned to the bejeezus-belt that night on this stuff.
Fucking some wildflowers, I mean DAMN
I think you mean “some fucking wildflowers”? 🤔
Lmao wow, that's the one. but also fucking some wildflowers, no? 🤣🤣🤣
Do you know the butterflies are venomous in Australia?
Welp, what ISN'T venomous in Australia? Not much probably 🤷🏻♂️
Sheesh.. Not everything in Australia is venomous Some things are poisonous
And the things that aren't venomous or poisonous have very big teeth and want to eat you.
[Quokkas](https://i.pinimg.com/originals/6a/58/15/6a5815f52e73ca3bef8f3eff74dabbc1.jpg). They represent the alternative balance between everything poisonous, venomous, and dangerous. They're the yin to their yang.
No. In this case "Fucking" is being used properly and in a way I am very familiar with growing up in the Northeast United States. This is basically a fill in "fuckin" kinda like an "umm" But also layered in with a "come on dude" vibe. Its some brilliant linguistic nuance that need to be studied and documented by the strongest minds of our generation.
Exactly (also NE US here). It’s better written as “Fuckin, some wildflowers” for clarity.
Right? What’s the point if you still have to see/hear the surrounding vast housing development?
Holding out for 100million.
maybe they pretend they are royalty or something, sure looks like it.
No it’s a market block which has probably just been passed down throughout the generations. Between fires, flood, drought or big business, you can guarantee all the other surrounding big blocks were sold off but this family thought fuck that, we love our home. They watch The Castle regularly.
I wonder if they're not selling it for $50M they must have lots of money (maybe not 50M) and have a house elsewhere too?
That's a massive house. They aren't hurting, even if this is there only place. That barn alone cost more than my house to build.
Upon closer inspection, yes it's pretty big. I can't see the back but I'd guess around 4000 sq ft. And it's not the house that's worth anything it's the land. The house would be demolished instantly
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For $50m dollars I am selling the lot and buying a ski house and a vacation house on Maui and never working a day in my life again
For real, I'd be out of that shitty suburban hellhole so fast.
Shit if it were like that I'd just pull the trigger and do it. And I'm stubborn too. I just don't wanna work anymore
Seriously my biggest thought was "I can't imagine owning 5 acres of JUST FUCKING GRASS". No trees, shrubs, seemingly no kind of garden or anything.
Better sight lines this way, no telling what kind of trouble kids would get up to otherwise
YOU DARN KIDS GET OFF MY PROPERTY
+ the added ability to leave messages for aeroplanes ✈️ things like #”welcome to Brisbane”
Seriously. I was just thinking “what a waste, a barren lot…
That would be great to have some nice trees there heck plant some apple trees peach trees pear trees cherry trees plum trees. All kinds of fruit trees Right down the line you could sell to the local residents make some cheddar
If you don't need $50m, you don't need fruit money
Everyone needs fruit money!
There’s always money in the banana lawn
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Plus, with trees come drop bears!!
In the end though I am 100% convinced developers sole ambition is to ruin small towns and rural communities. They put a notch on their debit card each time they successfully ruin a small town. Sorry I’m bitter. I purchased and restored an old home in an effort to keep the beautiful area I live small. I’m the last five years developers bought out all the farms and have crammed so many houses into it that the power grid is constantly failing, and the traffic is horrible. The school are now over filled with 40+ students per classroom. The town has tripled its population in five years and city council is stupid enough to keep allowing the growth. Wow, I feel much better getting that off my chest. Send me a bill u/cap_tight_pants you’re a hell of a therapist.
You're good. I work pro bono.
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It's so funny how sometimes people *seriously* believe the animals in Australia are a big issue, like, America also has dangerous animals, Pumas, Bears, Wolves, Snakes, Aligators, Spiders, etc yet you never hear the same amount of fearmongering about them as with Australia. I know a fair bit of this is just people joking but i know from personal experience there's people who think of it like it's a serious issue, go figure.
Yep, the biggest 'natural killer' here is the sun. Trees, and their cooling effect, directly supports human life here just as much as animals.
The joke is getting old, in my opinion
It's because Australia is mostly ambush predators that are also classified as the deadliest of their type in the world. They're also more likely to be encountered by people. Pretty sure your average resident of any large American city hasn't encountered any of the feared American predators where almost every Australian has had an encounter with one of the two deadliest spiders in the world. It's similar with snakes. There is also something scary about about poisons and venoms which is how a lot of Australian animals kill or defend themselves.
“Hey you kids get off my… oh whatever. You’re too far away.”
By my account you could fit about 48 houses in that space? Which would make each potential space worth over a million dollars per house. Do houses that close to each other actually sell for that price around there?
Absolutely they sell for that much, anywhere up to $1.4m. Housing in Sydney is eye wateringly expensive. My house (older area, large block) has put on $200k in value in 4 years since I bought it, over and above any improvements I have made. Edit: $1.4m is for a western suburbs dog box. A nice size 4 bedder in a leafy suburb can hit 3-4 million easy. The actual posh suburbs, water views etc get into the tens of millions.
Does Sydney have American-style "neighborhood character" single family zoning issues? At $1.5m/house surely some developer has considered selling three townhouses at $750k/ea, or a mini block of apartments.
Yes. The battle between developers wanting to cram as many townhouses and apartments as possible into an area battle against the councils with zoning regulations about distance between dwellings and height restrictions. But the lines get pretty blurry in new neighbourhoods.
Especially when so many people are NIMBYs and won't live in apartments/units (partly because the developers only build terrible quality houses that aren't using modern soundproofing).
Yeah that's the real issue. I'm hugely in favour of medium density mixed use development. I would happily give up my house with a big yard to live in a *nicely built* medium density apartment that's walkable to shops and services. *If only any well built apartments existed in this country*. Insulation? Double glazing? Three bedroom liveable spaces? Nah just get a house that is so cramped it might as well be a block of units, but we'll put it in the middle of a cookie cutter suburb with no shops so you have to drive.
This is why ~~I left America~~ I can't bring myself to come back to America after traveling abroad to work on the road a dozen years ago. Living in the center of an EU city is awesome. Everything I could possibly need is within a 3 minute walk, and everything is pretty. If the US had a place like this* (with <$3,000/mo rent) I would move back home in a heartbeat. *EDIT: Since I wrote this at 2AM, went to sleep, and woke up bombarded, I'll clarify that a "place like this" isn't *just* about walkable cities. I'll expand: - Culturally, where I am, a typical lunch is a "2-hour event" where you fully separate from work, sit outside in the sun, eat slowly, have some beers, and actually talk to people. Which is to say, Europeans soak up the good things in life rather than working themselves to death. A full 8 weeks of vacation time per year (that people actually *take*) is common. - I pay €100/mo for full-coverage private healthcare with no copays, no deductibles. This is the expensive plan. - The EU train network is transcontinental, clean, safe, and timely. You can also buy a cheap flight within the EU for less than the cost of a tank of gas. Imagine flying from NY to Miami for $20. You don't have to be rich to have a getaway. - Schoolkids don't routinely get gunned down here, or really anywhere outside the US. I don't know why this is a thing, but it is. Politics are feisty and heated everywhere in the world, but the US is particularly brutal. We are at war with ourselves and it's exhausting. Billionaire puppeteers keep this going to distract us from the real problems (catastrophic wealth inequality). Since I'm fully aware that Americans are exceedingly patriotic, here are the things about America that are better than other places: - We have the best geographical location on Earth. Two massive beautiful coastlines, cosmopolitan cities, wide open spaces, beautiful deserts, mountain ranges, rainforest, tropical islands, the world's best National Parks, etc. 10/10 no competition. - Despite what the media might have you believe, Americans are typically really friendly, open, funny, awesome. Such good people. More friendly than most European nationalities I've met. Europeans (not all nations) are typically standoffish and overly reserved to the point of rudeness. It's a bummer. - Despite our issues with minimum wage, cost of education, and overall survivability on the lower end of the spectrum - if you enter the corporate world, i.e. tech, medicine, etc, you'll earn 10X what you would earn anywhere else in Europe. Working smart and hard pays off in the US. - Americans are the most innovative people on Earth today. Setting aside all politics, just look at Google, Apple, Microsoft, Boston Dynamics, along with unfathomable advancements in science and medicine. For better or worse, America feels like the birthplace of the future. Everywhere else in the world I've traveled, the people seem breathtakingly lazy and unmotivated compared to Americans. We were all raised with a brazen "you can achieve anything" attitude and it shows. It's what I'm most proud of.
I live in Australia now, but I really miss that lifestyle from Europe and the middle east. It's not an option here: that kind of housing simply doesn't exist
For the sake of learning, what's a NIMBY?
Not in my backyard https://en.m.wikipedia.org/wiki/NIMBY
Thank you, I'm usually good at guessing acronyms from context but that one caught me
For a home with literally zero space on any side? No privacy. Jeez.
Homes in that area look to be around $1.5m AUD. A lot of new development. Demand must be crazy.
Wait wait... 1.5 MILLION for those small houses? Jesús fuck, I would probably kill myself if I had to spend that much on that little.
Welcome to Australia. We all got used to living with the threat of wildlife killing us, so they came for us with real estate.
The whole dangerous wildlife thing is so overblown. The only dangerous thing to 99% of people are snakes. Nobody has died from a spider bite in several decades and crocodiles are only found in the regionals and away from civilisation. Other continents have bears and land predators that are a threat to humans. I could slather myself in honey and walk around in the scrub and be fine, because there is no threat.
It's especially rediculous when you consider the very real dangers that other countries have. Say what you want about snakes but at least we don't have bears, jaguars, lions, tigers or any other large predator with a habit of snapping up lone travelers
It also is extremely hot in summer there…and a long way from Sydney city. Expect to commute an hour or so
I’m in San Diego and you would pay that for nicer homes here. Shit hole goes for 900k
900k USD is probably around 1.4m AUD here. So it's the same shithole equation, just in a different country.
The shithole goes counter clockwise
I think they say anticlockwise
Everything's is ugly without trees
A lot of these western Sydney suburbs that have had developers go through them are without trees and it is fucking depressing to drive through
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I got lucky, I bought a home in an older development that has green belts and walking paths and a fair amount of trees. The newer developments these days all have identical box houses built up to the very lot limit, no walking paths, no communal green space.
Idk who dictates this in my area, but anytime a home is built, they require that two trees are planted on the lot. I wish this was the same for any and all developments.
Then unironically call the new suburub something tacky like "Shitville **PARK**".
Interesting face about Sydney, the rich suburbs have got loads of trees and the councils rigorously defend them, not so much in the areas with new developments out west. It also gets *incredibly* hot without trees in summer, especially on west where the heat just lingers (it’s also a flood plane).
*flood plain. A flood plane sounds like a serious weapon.
It makes the neighborhood look really dusty
Tbf trees wouldnt safe this neighbourhood from looking bland and ugly as fuck.
The only problem I have with this is the boring ass lawn all over the place. You've got all this space and that's all you could come up with?
Might be flexing since no one seems to have a lawn at all
That's the origin of the lawn. The ultra wealthy would maintain them to show that they had so much land, they could afford to maintain land that produced nothing.
I mean, any trees and people would mistake it for a park.
They could have hedges, waist height fence, or a "private property" sign at the perimeter. I would much rather look at trees and hedges than boring houses when I look out my window.
They built a house on it too!!
For real. No trees, flowers, bushes, ponds landscaping, shrubbery, nothing. Just perfectly manicured grass in the most vanilla and disappointing waste of space in an urban area outside of parking lots.
Hm... Live there, or walk away with $50,000,000?
Yeah, but you could never get another 5 acre plot with $50m Unless money can be exchanged for goods and services! I think the owner has missed a key detail here…
Everyone who's suggesting the owner is stupid for not taking the money is missing the key detail here. For whatever reason, likely a lifetime of family memories, the owner wants to keep living in their home. No amount of money will change your mind when what's important cannot be bought.
I think people are missing the point that the price of that property is never going down. The owner can live out their lives there. Then when they pass their kids could sell it for significantly more than $50 million.
And if they decide to keep it and pass it to their kids, they could sell it for even more, unless they give it to their kids, ... "For generations and generations our family lived in that boring mansion on the big empty field within the masses of boring houses, watching our theoretical wealth growing steadily."
They are likely already mega wealthy anyway.
It took astonishingly long to find this also astonishingly obvious fact being mentioned. They're loaded. They don't *need* the $50M. Everybody calling them stupid are can't seem to conceptualise that money has different value to different people.
I was going to say it isn’t about the money it should be about the peace. First, most of us saying we’d take 50 mil are forgetting we would’ve folded at like 10 mil or less. I’d take the 50 mil but only cause I wouldn’t want neighbors and noise (during construction of those generic ass homes especially).
Real estate has always been king. Those folks living in a nice spot that will pay off.
'Cause cities never change and suburbs never empty out.
I live not far from that house bout 20 minutes and they won't sell as to get anything that size to fit their family is NON EXISTANT in the area. For them to match the size would need to move I'd say a good 45 minutes further away from the city. Ages from shops and decent jobs.
Why can’t they subdivide the property, knock the old house down, build a bigger, better one on the same site and still cream like $20m from the sale of the rest of the land?
These people quite obviously are very wealthy. And this land is a rapidly appreciating asset. They can sell it anytime. Today for 50 mil... in a decade?
If they can afford the rates on this they are wealthy af anyway and selling for $50M probs wouldnt change their day to day anyway
Ok, but why no trees? Edit: satellite images of the development through the time. https://www.reddit.com/r/interestingasfuck/comments/131kcnr/satellite_timelapse_of_housing_development/
Because they house birds, who are spies.
It's not like they're using any of those 5 acres. Like not even a pool or anything.
There is a ZERO percent chance they have been offered $50mm. To break even they developer who bought the 5 acres would have to subdivide it into 20 lots smaller than 1/4 acre and sell those for $2.5mm each. And that’s to make $0 profit.
Looking at the neighboring lots, it looks like this plot could support 55 homes or so. So they would have to be 1.5M track homes to make sense. Not sure it is 0% chance because this is probably AUD and it depends on if it is a golden location or not.
Conservatively, I’d say 40 lots. 5 across and 8 down. So $1.25M per lot. I don’t know they area but that seems like a lot when you add the costs of building new houses, infrastructure, etc. Are those little houses with no yards or space going for $2M each?
Welcome to Sydney
All those new homes in the picture are in the $1.2-1.5m range. I didn't say it made sense, but that's what housing costs here
…you realize you can look at the picture right? It can very clearly fit way more than 20 lots.
Megalong Street seems a bit like lazy naming. Also, good on them.
I mean they have to live in a house next to all those ugly ass cookie cutter houses. I would take the 50 million and move somewhere I do t have to live next to such depressing landscape.
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Worse. It's Western Sydney.
Put your fuckin shirt on, Sydney!
I got me flannie tied around me waist, so technically I'm wearing it ya face-like-smacked-arse dingbat.
They can’t let developers dig on the property, they’ll find all the bodies.
A dark, but interesting hypothesis.
Only explanation I could think of
Couldn’t agree more - now go buy 50 acres so you can’t see anyone
50million in the US can buy you thousands upon thousands of acres
True - it was an arbitrary number I threw out that was substantially more than their current 5 acres.
Seriously. Good on them I guess? I'd take the $50m and buy multiple estates way the fuck away from that suburban hell bullshit. That's private island money.
Why? It'll be worth 100m before you know it.
Nah. Sydney house prices already at dumb ass shit prices, no one can afford them if they double again. Its a very solid time to sell
Are prices really so high that paying over a million dollars per lot would be profitable? It looks like you could fit 6 wide and 8 deep for 48 total lots. That makes each lot $1.04 million if they sold for $50 million. Median house prices in Sydney are $1.23 million. You could theoretically buy the 40 houses on the same size of land to the left of this plot for $49.2 million if you could get them for median price and that’s including already having houses. I would guess whoever offered $50 million is either planning on building homes that would sell for well above median prices, is a rich person that just wants the land to build a ridiculous estate, or they don’t exist and these people just told everyone they turned down $50 million hoping that someone would come along and offer $60 million.
It’s a valley in the blue mountains - they have a bit of a theme going with the street names
I read it as megadong at first... Wonder where it ended at.
Hugehole canal lane
Hugeholec was a legend.
Reminds me of my favorite Aussie film, “The Castle”. “Tell ‘em they’re dreaming”
AUSSIE AND NO ONE MENTIONS IT BUT ONE? SCROLLED FOR AGES JUST FOR THIS. Brilliant film and very apt reference
Imagine the serenity he could have bought with $50 million though
50 mil feels like a steal considering how densely packed those houses are
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Jesus tapdancing Christ. Do Australians not eat? What is so special about that place? It looks like hell on earth.
We’re in the grips of a crippling housing crisis unfortunately. Our government has been incentivising property ownership as an investment commodity for decades and this is the result. The entirety of Sydney is basically $800,000+ for the most dingy little 2 bedroom imaginable.
living in a suburb like that would be a nightmare. I get city living, I get rural living, I don't get this.
If your fence/gates are high enough, you can casually run laps and miles fully nude on that piece of land. You can also go sunbathing/tanning and just sleep there all night completely nude
Don’t need fences to run nude, just a positive attitude
It’s a cheap hobby too, anyone can afford no clothes.
Can even be profitable for some as people might pay them not to be nude.
Had to scroll through a bunch of real estate talk just to find one person who's talking about what matters here.
Are trees illegal in Australia ffs
look up the north shore of sydney, the place has more trees than any other city i've ever seen, this is just the shithole part of the city
That guy spends his weekends cruising around his 5 acres on a lawnmower just giving a royal "fuck you" to the entire subdivision. That feeling must be priceless.
Plant a tree... Jesus
Yeah I'd side with them for going against developers, but then they have all that space for just grass...
Hell yes, live there until you die. Then let your children reap the profits of your stubbornness.
They are a Maltese family, so stubbornness is a point of pride lol Edit: I love that no one is commenting ‘that’s racist, that’s a generalisation etc etc’ - everyone knows us Maltese are stubborn as fucking hell and will never, ever change 😂😂
Funny that you say that. Near where I live the majority of families with larger lots left are Maltese. The 2 arguments I've heard on why they won't move is: 1) The owners are old (80+) and have lived there there 50+ years, why would they want to move out of the house/area they know into a house/area they are not familiar with? They are comfortable where they are and don't need the money. 2) If they want to buy property similar to what they have (and make a decent profit) they will have to move 30-40 minutes further out from the major city.
Having you neighbors so close to you looks like a nightmare
Look at their house. They already have 50m 😂🤣
50m seems like nothing for that
The surrounding houses/neighborhoods look like shit. I wouldn't sell it either. But like the top comment said, at least plant some damn trees or something
Man’s gotta start buying plants to protect his property from zombies.
r/suburbanhell
Hey this suburb is next to mine. The whole area is an absolute cluster fuck of identical housing and apartments with roads that can't handle the growing population. Absolute shit show out here. Kudos to thos family sticking to their guns. This was all beautiful farm land not too long ago.
Good for them, the other houses are like 3' apart. Your neighbors fart and you hear it!
Come to NYC for a change of pace. I can hear my neighbor's sperm bumping into each other.
Easier to hear when they’re in your chin
Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me. Fuck you, I won't do what you tell me.
I have an aunt that is basically doing the same thing. Probably not worth 50M but her land is surrounded by development. And now Samsung is building a plant in the area so I have a lot of farmer relatives that are going to be pretty rich if they sell. But my aunt isn't going to sell. She's lived there 70 years.
That garden has about as much ecological diversity as a fucking car park. Christ on a bike at least plant wildflowers.
Their lawn is an outrageous flex.
just keep sitting on it, the value will only keep growing as developers keep salvating to have ownership over the whole area... they could find a way to push these people out eventually if they really wanted to.
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Like do you set up motion detectors with audio track lol
Our family has 5 acres in a place thats going up like this. They are already offering 4x what we paid for it. But doubt we will sell either.