Collection of buyback homes headed to auction in the Northern Rivers
Would you buy a house that you’d have to pick up and move if bidding started at only a dollar?
With no reserve, this renovated Northern Rivers weatherboard home could fetch any imaginable price.
However, 161 Magellan Street, Lismore, is no ordinary listing.
It is one of 10 properties going to auction on September 17, which the NSW government purchased from owners in extreme flood zones, where lives and property were most in danger.
Known as buyback homes, they are available to purchase on the proviso the new owners move them elsewhere.
The NSW Reconstruction Authority has settled on 704 buyback properties. Eighty-five of those have been offered to the public to buy this year, and 22 have already been relocated. Others have been gifted to members of affected communities.
One of the cheapest deals for a buyback house was $347 for a weatherboard property near the Richmond River in Kyogle, which sold in July.
The properties going under the hammer at the Lismore Heights Sports Club on September 17 are a mix of sizes, styles and states of repair. Many more – up to 120 – are expected to go to auction throughout the year.
The family-sized, four-bedroom house on Magellan Street has been updated and features timber floors, a verandah, French doors, a fully tiled bathroom, a lock-up garage, and a sleep-out off a bedroom, which could be repurposed as a study or sunroom.
Buyers only have to part with a deposit of up to $1000 to secure their moveable home.
The land is not part of the sale, and anyone can purchase a buyback home. Under the criteria, the new owners have up to 12 months to relocate the property.
Agent Benjamin Conte of Wal Murray & Co First National is handling the Magellan Street listing, and the nine others, alongside colleague Keely Foster.
Locals from across the region have been the primary source of interest, but some from further afield have enquired, Conte says.
“It’s great to see someone picking them up and starting a new life with them, for their family,” he says. “Rather than getting demolished, someone gets use of them.
“Buyers just need some land, and can pick up one of these places and add their own touches. It’s so much more affordable than going out and spending up towards a million dollars for a house.”
Conte said the last collection of buyback homes on the market fetched about $12,000 to $77,000.
The scheme is effectively evacuating several hundred houses from perilously flood-prone areas across the Northern Rivers.
A deadly flood emergency swept the region in 2022, damaging more than 4000 properties and resulting in lives lost. Residents braced again for heavy rain from ex-tropical cyclone Alfred earlier this year.
Money from the buyback house sales is pumped into RA’s Resilient Homes Program, which funds safety measures for homeowners to flood-protect their homes, including retrofit improvements and raising their properties.
NSW Minister for Recovery Janelle Saffin tells Domain the program is the largest of its kind in Australia.
When rain from ex-tropical cyclone Alfred hit the Northern Rivers in March, hundreds of residents were already out of harm’s way, she says.
“There were 660 households across the Northern Rivers, and a lot in Lismore, who already had their buybacks and were gone, so that’s 660 households that were safe,” Saffin says.
Houses for sale right now in Lismore
The renovation-ready home has classic features, including VJ walls, a wood-burning fire and French doors, close to the centre of town.
The art deco home on an elevated block is aimed at first-home buyers or investors, carrying price hopes of $405,000.
The neat brick property is near to the heart of Lismore and packs on the charm, with timber floors, ceiling rosettes and a bathroom from decades past.
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