Properties in one of Australia’s cheapest towns are now selling for just $18,000, plunging below their value in the 1990s.
Morawa, in Western Australia, has a median house price of just $45,461 according to CoreLogic data, but homes are now selling for less than half of that.
Shire President Karen Chappel said Morawa is facing ongoing effects of the mining downturn and is hoping to lure new residents in with cheap houses and job vacancies.
Ms Chappel told Daily Mail Australia the council is offering incubator units to encourage new businesses to come into town.
Morawa, in Western Australia, has a median house price of just $45,461 according to CoreLogic data, but homes are now selling for less than half of that
Shire President Karen Chappel (left with Deputy Shire President Dean Carslake) said Morawa is facing ongoing effects of the mining downturn and is hoping to lure new residents in
‘They get the first three months rent free and the next three half-price, so we want to encourage new businesses to come in and get them on their feet,’ she said.
‘Any new business, any new family, anybody, is welcome.’
Morawa is located 160km east of Geraldton in the Mid West region of Western Australia and approximately 370km north of Perth.
The 2016 consensus found the town only has 750 people, but the town is equipped with a district high school, a college, a hospital, a train line and sporting facilities.
‘Education is one of our strongest factors as we are one of the only schools in the state with Kinder to Year 12 and one of the only schools with a music program,’ Ms Chappel said.
‘We have five agricultural schools in the state and one of them is here, and we have a really new hospital which is something we are very proud of.’
Ms Chappel said one of the strongest things the town has to offer is the inter-generational community and the social connections.
‘Whether you’re five years old or 85 years old, everyone takes care of you,’ she said.
‘We have an Olympic size swimming pool which is essential as it’s very hot and we are only an hour-and-a-half from Geraldton, which is the biggest regional centre and also has so much to offer.’
Morawa is also home to Western Australia’s cheapest home of the year at 4 Tubby Street, selling for just $18,000 in April.
It is also home to Western Australia’s cheapest home of the year at 4 Tubby Street (pictured), selling for just $18,000 in April
The owner bought it for $33,000 in November 2018, which is even less than what it sold for in 1998 at $38,000.
Ms Chappel said property prices have been declining ever since the mining downturn as people are ‘withdrawing their investments’.
Despite houses selling for just $18,000, Morawa is Australia’s second-cheapest town, with the median price of Cunnamulla in western Queensland even lower at $36,867.
The median price in this town, 807km west of Brisbane, is 176 times less than Australia’s most expensive suburb Darling Point, in Sydney’s east – where $6.51million is the mid-point.
Only 12 properties were sold in Cunnamulla this year, with the median price only likely to buy a house on a small block.
The ones now being advertised are on several hundred hectares of land with a two-bedroom house on a 1,012 square metre block selling for $85,000.
The towns with Australia’s cheapest housing are all in regional areas.
Of the 10 most affordable towns, three were in Queensland, with another five in Western Australia.
South Australia and New South Wales were each home to one of the cheapest towns.
Houses in Australia’s cheapest town are worth less than a popular car. Cunnamulla, in western Queensland, has a median price of just $36,867, CoreLogic data showed (pictured is a house now on the market for $85,000 on a 1,012 square metre block)
The median price in this town, 807km west of Brisbane, is 176 times less than Australia’s most expensive suburb Darling Point, in Sydney’s east – where $6.51million is the mid-point (pictured is the main street of Cunnamulla)
When it came to being an investor, Blackall in north-west Queensland had Australia’s highest rental yields of 15 per cent.
The grazing town had a median price of just $69,759.
That was only marginally more than the South Australian opal mining town of Coober Pedy, Australia’s tenth cheapest area with a median price of $67,701.
When it came to living near a capital city centre, Risdon Vale in Hobart’s north had a median house price of $287,616 – the cheapest for a house within 10km of a major central business district.