A vandalised Coober Pedy house listed for sale with an asking price of just $20,000 has sold for less than half of that, making it one of Australia’s cheapest homes.

The property at Lot 527 Van Brugge St recently sold for an undisclosed price – but now the jaw-dropping figure can be revealed.

It fetched just $7500, according to property records, four months after it failed to sell at auction.

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The Coober Pedy property at Lot 527 Van Brugge St has sold for just $7500 after hitting the market with a $20,000 price guide.

It initially went to auction but failed to sell.

Vandals have completely destroyed the property.

That’s 90 per cent less than Coober Pedy’s median house price of $77,500, which PropTrack data shows is the fourth cheapest in the country.

Andrews Property agent Misty Mance, who sold the house under instructions of the Public Trustee, said when it went under offer in July that she could not disclose the purchase price but confirmed it had been listed for $20,000.

That made it the cheapest home on realestate.com.au at the time.

She said the buyer planned to restore the miners-style home to turn it into short-term backpacker accommodation.

It would be no easy feat though given it was in such a state of disrepair it was impossible to tell how many bedrooms it once had.

Gaping holes could be seen in most of the walls – with some even missing – its flooring had been destroyed, the kitchen sink had been torn from the wall, while empty beer boxes and other rubbish littered the tiny house.

The charred remains of a caravan were also still on the 1000sqm block.

“It is a home that I think can still be restored but he (the buyer) is definitely going to need to do some work,’’ Ms Mance said.

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It was once a cherished property before it was destroyed.

The new owners hope to turn it into backpackers accommodation.

It was the cheapest property on realestate.com.au for a while there.

“He said he is going to restore it to its former glory to help with the accommodation shortage for 88-day backpackers.’’

Eighty-eight days refers to the time working holiday visa holders, except those from the UK, must spend in rural or regional areas to be eligible to extend their stay in Australia.

Ms Mance said the home was last occupied by a woman who lived there several years ago with her two young boys and had kept the property in immaculate condition.

After the mother, who had been unwell, and one of the sons died, the remaining son moved away, which was when vandals destroyed the home.

The title for Australia’s cheapest home has now been passed on to another Coober Pedy property, the residence at 536 Grund St that has a price guide of $28,000.

Ms Mance is also selling that property, which is described as “in a very rough condition, yet functional on a basic level”.

– with Lauren Ahwan and Lydia Kellner

The post Sale price of Coober Pedy property dubbed Australia’s cheapest home revealed appeared first on realestate.com.au.

Compass and Northwest MLS (NWMLS) are continuing their war of words.

Since Compass filed its antitrust suit against the NWMLS in April, alleging that the MLS’s rule requiring listings to be entered within 24 hours of public marketing and prohibiting office-exclusive listings is anticompetitive, the two parties have traded barbs via legal filings. 

In NWMLS’s reply to Compass’s response to its motion to dismiss, the MLS reiterated its claims that the brokerage has failed to allege any harm to competition or antitrust injury. 

“For all its bluster and obfuscation, Compass’ Complaint is simple: Compass claims the Sherman Act requires that NWMLS give it license to display all other member brokers’ listings on its website while Compass hoards its own Private Exclusive listings from other members,” the reply, filed on Monday, states. “In other words, Compass wants what is good for the goose but denies the same benefit to the gander.”

Equal sharing

According to NWMLS, its rules “do nothing more than make a broker benefiting from the listings of others share its own listings so that others may receive a commensurate benefit.” The MLS says that this approach ensures that all brokers within the organization are treated equally and promotes competition among those brokers. In contrast, Compass has argued that brokers’ inability to have private listings within NWMLS territory quashes brokers, agents and companies trying innovative business models, like its three-phased marketing plan. 

In its reply to NWMLS’s motion to dismiss the suit, Compass cited the PLS.com’s recently revived lawsuit against the National Association of Realtors (NAR). However, NWMLS argues that the case does not apply to this lawsuit. NWMLS argues that the PLS.com’s suit involves an alleged group boycott “in which NAR-affiliated MLSs owned by local Realtor Associations purportedly agreed to stifle competition from a rival startup.” 

Prior to its revival, the PLS.com’s suit was dismissed by the court, however the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals allowed the suit to continue.

“In so holding, it reiterated the orthodox antitrust law that while the rule of reason is the default standard for all agreements, in limited situations group boycotts may be per se unlawful,” the filing states. “Nothing in the Complaint brings Compass’ claims within those narrow circumstances.”

Fails to ‘allege a cognizable antitrust market and injury’

Additionally, NWMLS argues that Compass has thus far failed to allege a cognizable antitrust market and injury, failed to allege harm to competition and unlawful exclusionary conduct, and that it has failed to allege that as a service provider NWMLS owes a duty to deal with Compass. 

“Compass’ Complaint never alleges that NWMLS suspended, terminated, or even paused Compass’ membership in NWMLS, and Compass admits it retained full access to NWMLS’ listings database at all times,” the filing states. “It is Compass that restricted rival brokerages’ ability to compete by hiding Private Exclusives — behavior Compass voluntarily agreed it would not do. NWMLS has not restricted Compass’ ability to compete with rivals and the antitrust laws do not impose a duty on NWMLS to deal with Compass differently than any other brokerage.”

NWMLS also notes that while NAR rules allow for office exclusives, a fact Compass has highlighted in its filings, NWMLS is not affiliated with NAR and the trade group “is neither a governmental body nor a beacon of antitrust guidance, given is neither a governmental body nor a beacon of antitrust guidance, given the recent antitrust judgment against its mandatory commission rules.”

NWMLS concluded by reiterating its wish that the court dismiss Compass’s complaint with prejudice. If the suit is not dismissed it will progress into discovery. A trial date is set for June 8, 2026.

Down Payment Resource (DPR) on Tuesday released its Q2 2025 Homeownership Program Index report. It found that 45 new down payment assistance programs launched in the second quarter, bringing the total number of available programs in the U.S. to 2,554 and the number of program providers to 1,340.

The number of programs is a new record, DPR confirmed in a press release. The report also revealed that 967 programs (38%) are available to repeat buyers. Another 257 programs (10%) do not have income restrictions, increasing the number of homebuyers who might qualify for assistance, while 31 programs support first-generation buyers, an increase of 7% over the prior quarter.

Down payment assistance (DPA) programs can reduce a buyer’s loan-to-value ratio by about 6%, helping more mortgage-ready borrowers qualify. Many programs also cover closing costs, prepaid expenses, rate buydowns and mortgage insurance.

Some buyers can combine multiple programs for added savings. This is key as the U.S. median home price rose to $369,000 in Q2 2025, with the average 30-year mortgage rate at 6.82%, according to DPR.

“With home prices rising and interest rates still hovering close to 7%, prospective homebuyers are feeling the pinch heading into the summer, traditionally a very active homebuying season,” said Rob Chrane, founder and CEO of DPR.

“Even with these market headwinds, we are heartened to find more assistance programs than ever — at least one in every U.S. county and 2,000 counties with 10 or more — helping lenders qualify eligible buyers and close more loans in this tough market.”

Looking further into the Q2 data, DPR found that the number of programs supporting manufactured housing grew by 4% — from 971 in Q1 2025 to 1,006 in Q2 2025.

Manufactured homes are considered affordable housing because they are significantly cheaper to purchase than site-built homes. According to the Manufactured Housing Institute, they average $87 per square foot to build versus $166 for traditional homes.

DPA programs that support the purchase of multiunit homes increased by 3% from the prior quarter and now total 861 programs. Of these, a growing number support the purchase of three-unit homes (573) and four-unit homes (546).

Below-market-rate and resale-restricted programs, which offer housing at prices lower than that of the open market, increased by 9%.

Across all DPA programs, 81% are deferred payment programs, a 2% increase from the previous quarter. With a deferred payment loan, borrowers don’t make monthly payments and the balance is typically due when they sell or refinance, or when the loan matures.

Many of these loans are also forgivable; 53% of DPAs offer partial or full forgiveness over time as long as the homeowner meets certain requirements.

More than 1,000 programs (40%) were offered through municipalities or local program providers, a 2% increase over the previous quarter and up 46% from a year ago.

Programs sponsored by employers now represent 3% of the total, up 33% year over year. Housing authorities — independent governmental bodies that provide and manage affordable housing options for low-income, elderly and disabled buyers — accounted for 4% of programs, up 1% from the previous quarter.

Nearly 200 programs offer special incentives based on the buyer’s occupation or other characteristics. Of these, 68 offer assistance for educators, 52 for Native Americans, 45 for military veterans and 35 for active-duty military. These buyers can also qualify for many of the other 2,554 programs in the DPR database, the release noted.

Lastly, 118 programs are “multi-state,” a 31% year-over-year increase, and are available for buyers in two states or more. The report also highlighted a growing number of in-state programs in Hawaii, Missouri, Oklahoma, Pennsylvania and Virginia.

Amid increasing levels of mortgage fraud, the FBI has renewed a warning to Americans about an app that could trick victims into losing their entire banking, savings, retirement or investment accounts.

The FBI first issued a public service announcement on the Phantom Hacker scam in September 2023. But on July 15, the bureau’s Los Angeles office warned of the scam agains through a social media post on X.

“The FBI reminds the public to beware of Phantom Hacker Scams where cyber criminals use a 3-prong attack against victims using tech support, financial institution, & government impersonation scams simultaneously,” the post read.

“Phantom Hacker” scams commonly target seniors. The FBI describes it as “an evolution of more general tech support scams, layering imposter tech support, financial institution, and government personas to enhance the trust victims place in the scammers and identify the most lucrative accounts to target.”

The scam is three-pronged, according to the FBI. The first phase involves a tech support imposter contacting the victim either via text, email, phone or pop-up, posing as a real company’s support representative.

The victim is told to call a number and install an application that gives the scammer access to their device. Next, the scammer instructs the victim to open financial accounts under the guise of checking for fraud, identifying which accounts hold the most money.

Finally, the victim is told to expect a call from their bank’s fraud department, which is also part of the scam. The number could be spoofed to appear to be the bank’s genuine number.

In phase two, a scammer posing as a bank official claims the victim’s accounts were hacked and urges them to transfer funds via wire, crypto or cash to a fake “safe” government account while warning them not to tell anyone about the transaction.

In the final phase, a scammer posing as a government official tells the victim their money is still at risk and must be moved to a secure “alias” account. If the victim grows suspicious, the imposter may send fake documents with official-looking government letterhead to make the scam seem legitimate, the FBI said.

The bureau also reported that from January to June 2023, losses from these scams topped $542 million, and the agency received 19,000 complaints. Of these complaints, nearly half were from victims over the age of 60. Many lost entire bank, retirement or investment accounts while believing they were protecting their assets.

Most major banks and tech companies give the same warning — they will never call out of the blue to report this type of fraud. They recommend calling your banks independently for reassurance.

The five-bedroom house 12 Narmbool St, Manifold Heights, has sold after six months on the market.

Manifold Heights’ meteoric rise to Geelong’s most expensive residential real estate can be traced to the 1920s.

The decision to impose a single-dwelling covenant when most of the streets were mapped out on what was originally vineyards has locked in multimillion dollar paydays for renovated and rebuilt homes a century later.

The latest is a circa-$2m sale of a renovated and extended five-bedroom house at 12 Narmbool St.

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The residence, designed by DBL and built by Archibald Builders with substantial involvement from the vendors, covers a significant portion of the 697sq m block off Shannon Ave.

Veteran agent Tony Young, of Gartland, Geelong, said it took six months to stitch together the deal with the buyers who were the first to inspect the property.

The home was initially listed at a higher price, though the buyers returned to the table when the guide was reduced to a $2m to $2.2m range, Mr Young said.

The undisclosed price was within that range, as a couple of other potential buyers made offers, he said.

The large open-plan living, dining and kitchen zone is the home’s key feature that leads out to a rear deck.

The kitchen features a butler’s pantry, integrated dishwasher and stainless steel cooker.

“Their persistence has paid off in time. When we started the campaign, they viewed it at that time but couldn’t really make it work,” Mr Young said.

“As soon as it got down to the new price they were able to. We ended up with three buyers that came through at that point, and they were all very similar in regard to their offers.”

A string of high-end sales has cemented Manifold Heights as Geelong’s most expensive suburb, with a $1.175m median house outpricing blue-chip Newtown, a 20 per cent jump in three years, according to PropTrack data.

Recent top-end sales includes $3m-plus transactions in Bostock and Purrumbete avenues. There have been $2m-plus sales in the same streets, along with at 4 Narmbool St.

A four-bedroom Volum St house sold recently for $1.9m, prior to a $1.88m sale in Wimmera Ave.

A deep freestanding bath is a key feature of the main bathroom.

The bedrooms offer plenty of space.

Mr Young said the single-dwelling covenant had created a residential enclave where home values were accelerating through renovation and demand.

“You’re paying around $1m for a block and then you are spending quite a lot of money to build a home,” Mr Young said.

“You want to know that there’s not going to be two townhouses going up next to you, or a proliferation of cheaper properties built.

“So it really is becoming a real high quality residential enclave, and with people really investing a lot of money – it started probably 15 years ago – it’s just starting to ramp up, and people are more than happy to spend the money to be in Manifold Heights.”

The deck expands entertaining space.

A built-in entertainment system is featured in the living zone.

Mr Young said the owners had done “an amazing job of the extension and renovation – it really is a beautiful home”.

Luxe, contemporary design features are clean and minimal, with an abundance of light and space.

The designer kitchen has stainless-steel appliances and a large butler’s pantry, stone island bench and lots of storage.

A large undercover veranda and entertainment deck which overlooks the low-maintenance landscaped north-facing rear yard.

The post Circa $2m sale shows Geelong suburb’s premium growth appeared first on realestate.com.au.