This Blacktown home sold this weekend for $840,000.
Fire-ravaged homes covered in soot, with rooms clogged by rubble and scorched timber, have piqued buyers’ interest as a shortage of shovel-ready building blocks continues to bite Sydney.
Agents have reported significant buyer interest in the uninhabitable homes, with several fire-damaged homes auctioned at high prices last week. One burned home is still for sale with a price estimate of $7.5 million.
Most interest in the burned houses comes from buyers who want to redevelop the locations.
The sales come amid warnings from insurers that reckless household habits and poor battery charging practices are causing more and more properties to go up in flames, with devastating consequences.
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Allianz Emerging Risks Officer Chris Wood said many recent fires were preventable and attributed them to a lack of education about how to store, store and charge important battery-powered items such as power tools and e-bikes.
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This fire-damaged home in Waverley has a guide price of $7.5 million.
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A particularly alarming trend was the number of people leaving devices unattended in a cluttered garage for weeks to charge.
“There is a fire hazard in an area of the home that is surrounded by flammable materials such as paint and would not normally have smoke detectors,” he said, adding that leaving devices to charge indefinitely makes them more susceptible to fire.
Research from insurance comparison group iSelect found that 82 percent of Australian households had engaged in at least one dangerous habit that could cause a fire in the past year, such as leaving cooking unattended or overloading electrical boards.
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This maroon home, burned in a tragic fire, recently sold for $1.44 million.
The completed fire destroyed the roof of the Auburn house.
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Homes that returned to the market for sale after a fire had varying histories and often the exact cause of the fires was difficult to determine, but almost all properties have been enthusiastically received by the market.
Part of the reason was that they offered a clean slate for homebuyers to create a new home with their own personal stamp.
“It’s an opportunity to create something new,” said Officer Haynes Wileman of PPD, who is selling a burned-out Waverley home for $7.5 million. The rear half of the house was probably damaged by a cooking fire.
These options have become scarce due to the shortage of blocks ready to create.
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South Penrith, where a fire-damaged house recently sold for $820,000.
Estate agent Ali Khanchedar inspects fire damage to a house on Pindari Dr in South Penrith.
Housing Industry Association economist Tim Reardon noted that Sydney had fewer available blocks than Perth, despite having more than double the population.
“There aren’t enough of them,” he said. “Local municipalities do not have the right incentives to bring more land onto the market. It remains expensive.
“The state government has introduced a system to make land cheaper to maintain, but the steps taken today will only be visible in five to 10 years.
“A lot of the land being released today was planned long ago during the GFC. It’s taking a long time.”
Figures from the Housing Industry Association show that the average lot size in Sydney has grown to $685,000, up from $409,000 in 2015, but the average lot size has shrunk from 450 m2 to 388 m2 over the same period.
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These burnt lots at 279-281 West Botany Street, Banksia, will be auctioned.
Starr Partners agent Greg Okladnikov recently sold a maroon home that burned down in a tragic fire and said it received significant interest. Eight parties registered to bid at the December auction and the house, without a roof, sold for $1.44 million.
“We got a call within two minutes of being listed,” he says. “Opportunities to build in this pocket are exceptionally rare.”
Similar homes have sold in South Penrith and Mount Druitt in recent months.
A burnt-out house in Blacktown was auctioned this weekend and sold for $840,000.
This burnt house in Dixon St, Mount Druitt, recently sold for $921,000.
Listing agent Rachana Singh of Ray White said she could not reveal the cause of the fire.
It is one of the most badly damaged properties to come up for sale in recent years, with images showing an interior with blackened walls, scorched furniture and frayed ceilings hanging from what little remains of the roof beams.
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