Purchasing property is expensive, so we talk about it instead... by fantasising about a 14-bedroom house that is clearly out of our reach.
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Purchasing property is expensive, so we talk about it instead... by fantasising about a 14-bedroom house that is clearly out of our reach.
We’re on social media, but don’t use it much, so email us! toastroastpod@gmail.com
Geoff 0:09
Hey everybody, welcome back to another episode of Toast & Roast. I'm your co host, Georgie. And as always, I'm here with Geoff.
Hello, hello. What's up?
Georgie 0:20
Sky.
Geoff 0:21
How's life? Whatcha doing?
Georgie 0:22
It’s going. I'm reading a book, right? And it was one that I reserved from the library, like a physical book. Yes, they’re—
Geoff 0:30
Jesus.
Georgie 0:30
Those exist, by the way. And I had to reserve it. Like, I actually not I had to, but I reserved it months ago, literally at least two months. And there was a queue of maybe seven people, I don't know, I just thought, I'll put my name in the queue. I'll reserve the book. And I went on holidays for like, a month. So I had to email them. Because I had another book that I reserved, come come up and say, hey, your reserve is like, ready. And I just emailed the library and said, Hey, I'm actually going to be back until this date. So can you just like put these on hold or something. And they're like, OK cool no problem, we’ll reactivate all of your reserves when you come back. So I borrowed this book, and it's been like, maybe, I think they let you borrow for like three weeks. But I had other books that I'd borrowed. So I was, I needed more time to read this one. Anyway, it's due today. And I couldn't renew it, because somebody's waiting for it. So I have to finish reading it today. And then go walk to the library and return it. They have like a cute where you can—OK also—
Geoff 1:39
Ah, cool.
Georgie 1:40
So I probably like I'm embarrassing myself here. Because I think every library has this. You don't—like there are 24/7 like, put your book in the chute kind of thing.
Geoff 1:50
Yeah. Yeah.
Georgie 1:51
So, yeah.
Geoff 1:52
Just like the money ones.
Georgie 1:54
Ah.
Geoff 1:56
Yeah, bank, the banks have a 24/7 like money chute. But you don't put cash—
Georgie 2:01
Does anyone even use—
Geoff 2:02
...in there. I don't know if anyone uses them, I see them. But I don't know if they open. But I think back in the day, like you have a bag of money. You put like a receipt or something on it. You can just chuck it in there. Like after hours, money deposits.
Georgie 2:18
Okay, I do wonder, so apart from the fact, I wanted to say that borrowing books again, instead of buying them has kind of forced me to read the book. Like because it's like a time limit. So it's almost good because it's encouraging me to read the book. Otherwise I wouldn't be reading so frantically—
Geoff 2:37
Or it could sit there and just go back.
Georgie 2:40
Oh, yeah, I always, I have authority. What is it? Or not authority, but I have the freedom to make my own choices. If I don’t want to read this book. Now. This book was actually like, Okay, I mean, it's actually been okay, so far. So like, what happens? Okay, if there are any librarians or bank people, tellers, out there who look into those chutes. I'm just very curious. Like, I guess I always think about the issue like this, but what if someone put something in the library chutes that is not supposed to go in there?
Geoff 3:11
(laughs) Not a book?
Georgie 3:12
Like a rub—like a piece of rubbish? Like do you get weird shit come through in the returns chute? I—
Geoff 3:18
Yeah.
Georgie 3:20
Is it a “surprisingly, no”?. Is it a, “Yep, we got like a burger in there once”?
Geoff 3:26
I think like, if it's a serious problem, wouldn't they have like signs or? Like cameras?
Georgie 3:37
Yeah.
Geoff 3:38
Our bin, our bin chute.
Georgie 3:41
Oh, yep yep.
Geoff 3:42
...has like a ton of signs around what to do. It's so ridiculous. Because it's just a room—
Georgie 3:47
Put in the chute?
Geoff 3:47
It has a chute, it has a chute. And then on not what not to put in that room in general. And then it's like for recycling, they don't have anything for that they have like this bin thing that is, that has a picture of all the bottles and stuff that you can put in there. And then cardboard stuff is just free for all. So in the room, you just find like flatten some, most, most of the times they're flattened, but like you can find unflattened boxes, but you just chuck all the cardboard onto the floor and just walk away. Like it's just so unorganised. And I assume that it's like if they had, the system is that the cleaner will come up with the with their own recycle bin and they would put all the stuff into one recycle bin so you don't have a recycle bin on every floor that they would have to roll individually out.
Georgie 4:05
Yes, so we have those.
Geoff 4:28
That would be insane.
Georgie 4:43
We have two per level. And—
Geoff 4:45
Wow.
Georgie 4:46
It’s so annoying when people do not flatten the cardboard, and they just put a, like an unflattened box that takes up like half the bloody bin. And I think there are some people who leave the flat, flanttened cardboard, just in that little room where the two bins are—it’s not a room, it’s a cupboard.
Geoff 5:05
Yeah. Oh it’s cupboard?
Georgie 5:07
Yeah, there's a sign saying if you have big bulky cardboard, like that doesn't fit in the bins, you should go down to the actual bin room down in the loading dock or whatever.
Geoff 5:16
Yeah.
Georgie 5:17
But you know, not not everybody does that. There was this one incident, I think, yeah, like last year. We were trying to put—so you know, the garbage, you have, do you have a garbage chute where you put normal—
Geoff 5:31
Yeah, like, like, you just pull the door open. You throw things down. You close it and it goes down the chute.
Georgie 5:37
Yep. So I think that's, I don't know who's listening to this episode. But I feel like that's common in other countries, but not common in Australia. Maybe?
Geoff 5:47
Really? I think every apartment I've been in has had one.
Georgie 5:51
Nope, not the one that I used to live in. But yeah, we were putting, trying to put regular trash bags in there. And then there was something like blocking it. Like straight up like when you had a look and pushed the flap to see, there was like a massive piece of cardboard. Obstructing, like, straight up obstructing the, the what the way of the of the chute.
Geoff 6:19
Yeah the flow?
Georgie 6:20
Yeah, it's yeah, the flow of the chute. And like, we are—without doxxing myself—we are maybe halfway up the building. And, and then, there—also no coincidence, or maybe it was a coincidence that we had a maggot problem in the building at around the same time. So anyway, we're like, we want to get this box out or push it down. Like whatever. Or this, this cardboard. Couldn't push it down because apparently was so large. Anyway, Nick managed to like yank it out of the entire chute. It, I'm not even joking, it was bigger than the size of the chute. And someone had just fucking like, pushed it like—
Geoff 6:59
Shoved it down there?
Georgie 7:00
Forced it into the chute. I thought, this is funny, but also really bad. Because how much were they like blocking? And I looked at the box. And it was like, there was had obviously been something that had been shipped to this person. So, and they didn't bother ripping their address off the box.
Geoff 7:20
Ohhhh.
Georgie 7:20
Saw what unit they were in, and they were at the top level of this building.
Geoff 7:24
Oh my god.
Georgie 7:25
Top level of this building. So it had gone down many levels and potentially blocked trash from anything above us, and then come down. Imagine if that just kept getting stuck there. And—
Geoff 7:39
Oh, God, it would smell so bad.
Georgie 7:42
It would be terrible.
Geoff 7:42
You basically yeah, you'd have like a little literal trash heap in there.
Georgie 7:47
Yeah, anyway I kind of dobbed on them, on the building manager, or I said well there was—
Geoff 7:51
A hundred percent.
Georgie 7:52
This the end. Yeah, the building manager said sometimes it's such a problem and he had to put the signs in different languages because there are a lot of people here don't speak English. And they probably don't understand.
Geoff 8:05
Yeah.
Georgie 8:06
What they’re actually suppoed to do with some trash.
Geoff 8:09
You could get fined but I don't understand how you can get fined unless you leave your address on the boxes or or address on like microwave, or whatever the toaster oven that you just throw into the room. You just—
Georgie 8:24
But what’s the fine for—
Geoff 8:24
Just seen some weird stuff.
Georgie 8:26
Like what is the—
Geoff 8:27
For, for, I don’t know.
Georgie 8:28
What are you accused of doing?
Geoff 8:30
You're accused of misusing the trash room or whatever. So yeah, you can get, I think you can get fined, but I don't even know how you can possibly follow up with that. Same with like trolleys like they have a $500 fine for people who leave trolleys out the door, outside the door, outside the lobby, but people still do it and I don't understand how they can possibly stop them. Even if you used, you could have cameras but who the hell is it? You don't know who that is.
Georgie 9:02
Yeah.
Geoff 9:04
So, the cameras in the left you can see, you can just follow them into the lift and see what floor they went to. And then like into the into the hallway and then see which like room they go into. Actually speaking of rooms, and it's very, very tangential. But recently I got linked a Domain listing, Domain being our real estate online choice of New South Wales.
Georgie 9:31
Yeah.
Geoff 9:33
I say choice of New South Wales because I don’t, nobody knows. There are multiple real estate websites and applications and every state has their preferred one. I think this, so Victoria—
Georgie 9:45
Melbourne, Real Estate?
Geoff 9:46
Real estate agent. Yeah, Melbourne is Real Estate, Sydney or New South Wales is Domain I think Brisbane, Brisbane, Queensland is also partially Domain but also, I don't think Domain’s won the war there. and I think WA is also REA or some local one for WA. So, yeah, each state has their kind of preferred platform. Anyways. So we got sent this listing for a fourteen apartment building. Let's see if I can find—
Georgie 10:22
Wait, as in there are 14 apartment—
Geoff 10:24
There’s 14 apartments in this block. And you can buy the whole thing. Let's see. Let's see. Domain, stu... Domain 14 apartment... building.
Georgie 10:44
I need to see this.
Geoff 10:44
Ooh, that is not... I think I can still find it here. Yeah, here we go, du du du du, du, du du du. Here we go. So it's it's looks more like a house.
Georgie 10:59
Oh shit, it’s like a manor.
Geoff 11:01
It's a huge manor. It's white. It's got like—
Georgie 11:05
Oh my god, floor plan please.
Geoff 11:07
It’s got windows all over it. Is is it a Victorian style building? I can’t remember what it is. Yes, Victorian residence of 14 apartments, renovated estate fully leased annualised rent income is $555,000 per annum. And for those playing at in the US, thousand odd... to USD, it is...
Georgie 11:34
Shit.
Geoff 11:35
Wait, that's not, that’s too many zeros, too many zeros. 351,592 US dollars. 14 apartments and two car spaces.
Georgie 11:49
Are you serious? Only two.
Geoff 11:51
Yeah. A mix, a mix of one bedroom and studio apartments. Land size is 658 square metres. Fully developed current by the current owners in 2008. All apartments are fully furnished, buildings fully fire compliant, blah, blah, blah. And they're all, it’s fully leased. So this people in this building?
Georgie 12:14
Yeah.
Geoff 12:15
So I looked this up recently, actually a couple months ago—
Georgie 12:20
Did you come across it randomly or—
Geoff 12:22
No, I got sent it by friends.
Georgie 12:24
Hahaha.
Geoff 12:25
So a couple months ago, I was thinking about like, how can I solve the problems of an apartment building by sheer like money or like willpower? And I was like, what if I bought a whole apartment building? Like I think in America you have like apartment building owners. But I don't think they have them here. Like cos usually every every apartment’s rented—or not rented, owned by somebody and you have an owners corporation for those who don't know.
Georgie 12:57
So this property is kind of like a rarity?
Geoff 13:02
Yeah, because, because the, because I was reading about how to own a building and usually when you when you do it, you build it you buy a building to to renovate like the whole thing you redevelopment, basically.
Georgie 13:15
Yeah.
Geoff 13:16
And then and then you you just get a developer to develop it, and then you sell off all the apartments because that's what you came to do. Or you buy out every single apartment in the building and own the whole building. And that's really difficult. How do you convince like 1000 people, depending on how big your apartment building is, to sell you their apartment for $50,000 or whatever.
Georgie 13:41
So with this one if you were to buy it, like would you kick people out? Or would you just keep the income, like what’s the, what is the benefit of like kicking the people out? (laughs)
Geoff 13:54
I'm so I'm guessing that this turns a profit somehow, fifty, $555,000 per annum might turn you a profit, but you'd have to probably do the math.
Georgie 14:05
Yep. And you don’t know, like you don’t know the price of this bloody thing, so...
Geoff 14:08
Yeah, you don't know, you could do the math, and we could do the math here if we wanted to. So like you got some nice looking rooms. I mean, apartments. (laughs)
Georgie 14:21
What if, OK, tell me—
Geoff 14:21
But it’s literally a house—
Georgie 14:23
Tell me if I'm wrong, but what if you reestablished this as a hotel?
Geoff 14:27
Yeah.
Georgie 14:28
Is that gonna—
Geoff 14:29
Oooh.
Georgie 14:29
...get you more cash flow? Like if they're all like little—
Geoff 14:32
It’s really interesting.
Georgie 14:33
They have a lot of studio... Oh, yeah, we can look at the units. Holy shit.
Geoff 14:37
Yeah. So here's the units.
Georgie 14:38
They’re lit... wow. They're very, they are very small. They are like...
Geoff 14:42
You... You can probably tell by the look of this, the units that some of them don't really have kitchens in them. So this, I think this denotes... so basically, people can't see this, but essentially it is a big house and there are multiple rooms in the house and all they've done is basically portioned off a bit of every room and turned it into a toilet. So it just it's slap a toilet onto the side, onto the side of every room. And I'm assuming they all have galley kitchens or kitchen... like one side—
Georgie 15:19
So they couldn’t refit it with that to make livable, like as a proper like home with—
Geoff 15:25
Yeah.
Georgie 15:25
All facilities you need.
Geoff 15:27
I thought some of them didn't have marked kitchens, but I think all the benchtop-looking things are kitchens.
Georgie 15:33
Okay, so this reminds me of a place that we stayed in Norway, like in the islands, it was in an actual like, it was like a manor. That's what they call it, like a manor house. And it was like an old like, you know, character home or whatever shit. But it was similar to this. It was like a like multi storey, I mean like two or three storeys. And you had a room and then you had a very nice bathroom. There was no like, there was no kitchen inside.
Geoff 15:58
In the living room.
Georgie 15:59
There were areas that were like common, like a common kitchen seating area. So you could share that space with other guests if you wanted to, like cook something up or whatever. So this very much reminds me of that. But like to be honest, the, I don't, they obviously did something like with the space a little bit, like the the bathrooms were very fancy and like refurbished, and they took up a lot of space as well. So maybe it was originally like two rooms and then they made one a bathroom to make it fancy. But I feel like you could make this a hotel instead. I, I don't know if that's the right—
Geoff 16:33
Yeah.
Georgie 16:34
If you’re trying to gain money.
Geoff 16:36
So I think a hotel probably makes more sense. Now that you mention it. Because A, there's only two car parking spots. Let's be real. You have 14 units and two car parking spots. That's, that's a pretty hard sell. Um, so I think a hotel would probably be best. I don't know. Let's have a look at where it is specifically.
Georgie 16:57
It’s near Sydney uni, right, so it's kind of great—
Geoff 17:00
Would you actually have a hotel there in, near USYD? It's probably good for student housing.
Georgie 17:07
Student... yeah
Geoff 17:08
Right. Students don't necessarily have the—
Georgie 17:12
They can’t pay hotel—
Geoff 17:14
...cars perhaps?
Georgie 17:15
Or they might not, yeah.
Geoff 17:16
Yeah. In any case, so like I said this it's pretty hilarious because you could probably gather 14 of your best friends, just go live in this—
Georgie 17:29
Oh my god, yeah. You could, hey.
Geoff 17:30
So it's, it's quite funny. I was also thinking you shoul just smash the whole thing down and create like a duplex or something like that. Two, two houses—
Georgie 17:34
If you wanted a bigger—
Geoff 17:44
With shared wall and have like a more livable space compared to, I dunno, living in one of these makeshift apartment rooms. But how weird would that be?
Georgie 17:56
Oh my god. You know what you could do? Make it an escape room business.
Geoff 18:01
(laughs) Would you earn $555,000 a year on an escape room?
Georgie 18:07
Oh shit, can we do the math?
Geoff 18:09
Or you could, what's, a murder mystery house, you could just do murder mysteries all year around. Massive... floor one murder mystery, floor two, murder mystery. So you could probably math this out with what's the... estimated property price cannot be five—oh is it 5 million? No 500,000. That's not great.
Georgie 18:34
There's no way that is...
Geoff 18:37
What's the rental yield? That's the question. Glebe rental yield... apartments. Glebe. So you could probably say that... let's have a look. House units. Wait, where is the rental? Wait, wait—
Georgie 19:04
Oh wait.
Geoff 19:05
Me... median rent fee for houses 950 per week.
Georgie 19:10
Okay.
Geoff 19:13
Average time... Unit in Glebe 650 per week. So...
Georgie 19:22
Okay.
Geoff 19:22
You could say that these are, these are studio apartments barely. So they're maybe 500 per week.
Georgie 19:29
Yeah.
Geoff 19:31
And if you were to match that with 14... so where's my calculator... because I... Kumon, Kumon.
Georgie 19:41
What, 500 times what, 52?
Geoff 19:43
Time like fourt... fifty two?
Georgie 19:47
Yeah.
Geoff 19:48
Yeah? Multiplied by 14?
Georgie 19:51
$364,000.
Geoff 19:53
$364,000.
Georgie 19:54
It’s probably a little bit more expensive than $500 because Glebe is—
Geoff 19:58
Probably.
Georgie 19:58
I think a nice ish area close to the city and all that.
Geoff 20:03
But I mean, is this, says rental, rental slash income of 555,000 per annum? What we were math, what were we mathing for again, like how much it would cost to buy this place?
Georgie 20:15
Oh, that's what we—
Geoff 20:17
Would you actually make money, if you actually make money from this, right? I reckon, there's either, either it's not making money, and that's why they're selling it.
Georgie 20:26
Yeah.
Geoff 20:27
Or they're tired of this shit. Because—
Georgie 20:30
Yeah.
Geoff 20:30
Imagine managing 14 apartments. Thirteen, if you're living in there.
Georgie 20:36
So hang on. No, what we were going to try and figure out is like, if it was an escape room, would you you get more than 360... (laughs)
Geoff 20:43
Probably not. You can't really charge, man. So an average escape room is actually quite high these days, I think you can, like charge like, $30 to $50.
Georgie 20:52
Oh shit.
Geoff 20:53
Depending on how elaborate your escape rooms are.
Georgie 20:55
So let's say we get an average of like four people. $30, average of what maybe four people in one session?
Geoff 21:03
I don't think it's per person. It's just one session is 40, is $40. Maybe average?
Georgie 21:08
I thought it was for per person. Oh really?
Geoff 21:10
No, it's not per person. It's just sort of like, so do you have 14 escape rooms—
Georgie 21:14
Thirty times 14, let’s say you can fit in five sessions a day? That's being—
Geoff 21:18
Five?
Georgie 21:20
Like—
Geoff 21:20
That's an, well, it's a two hours per session, I think is a general, 90 minutes. I think 90 minutes is generally how long an escape room is.
Georgie 21:27
Five is the maximum you’d be able to fit in.
Geoff 21:29
Yeah.
Georgie 21:29
It’s 30 b 14.
Geoff 21:30
Probably five.
Georgie 21:31
...rooms by five. So in a day, you'd get 2100. (snorts)
Geoff 21:34
2000? Oh, no. If you run that every day for the entire year 365.
Georgie 21:43
That's...
Geoff 21:43
That's about the same amount.
Georgie 21:44
Oh that’s actually alright. (laughs) $766,000.
Geoff 21:44
(laughs) That’s really good at this.
Georgie 21:44
I was very surprised, I was for some reason, didn’t think it would be that big.
Geoff 21:54
Yeah.
Georgie 21:55
Yeah.
Geoff 21:56
But actually, it should be about half. It should be—
Georgie 21:59
Wait but then you have to pay—
Geoff 21:59
Half that amount.
Georgie 22:00
You have to pay the people who are working for the. (laughs)
Geoff 22:02
(laughs) No, you don't. Slaves.
Georgie 22:05
Woah, woah woah.
Geoff 22:07
I think you should halve it because escape rooms are normally more than one room. So you need to use two rooms for escape room.
Georgie 22:14
Yeah, yeah. Gonna be a rudimentary escape room if you have one.
Geoff 22:19
So I think you'd probably make 350. Maybe $300,000 a year. So it's actually about the same as renting it, with less than, less headache, I suppose.
Georgie 22:29
Yeah, it would probably be just initial costs and initial like setup. But then you'd want to refresh maybe every year or a couple of years you want to refresh the rooms.
Geoff 22:39
Yeah. So I mean, if you pay $500,000 for this thing, and you're taking on a loan of like—
Georgie 22:47
Geoff, do you think it would 500—
Geoff 22:48
...four hundred.
Georgie 22:49
The whole building is not going to be 500,000, no fucking way.
Geoff 22:51
Well it’s just average—
Georgie 22:55
I think you’re right, they must not be making money. Yeah, do you think so? I—
Geoff 22:59
Average value, oh it says example value. It says example value. Okay. Okay. Fair enough. Yeah, I don't..
Georgie 23:06
I dare you to email them—
Geoff 23:06
I wonder how much it actually costs.
Georgie 23:08
Like what do you, what do you think the...
Geoff 23:11
So let's have a look. Three... 4, 3, 2 is $3 million. So you add like ten, ten room, or like, ten more rooms on there?
Georgie 23:23
Okay, just for context, right, like there was an apartment above us, three bedrooms, I think two bathrooms.
Geoff 23:30
Yeah.
Georgie 23:30
And I think one car space that went from $1.8m.
Geoff 23:35
Three bedrooms for 1.8. That's really good. Like, you get—
Georgie 23:38
Yeah. For an apartment.
Geoff 23:39
...two bedrooms here for $1.2 million. Two bedrooms an apartment.
Georgie 23:45
Everything’s just expensive. I just feel like—
Geoff 23:46
Everything's just expensive.
Georgie 23:47
It’s like, what, how many bathrooms, it’s like what, 14 bedroom—
Geoff 23:51
14 bathrooms. 14 bedrooms. So I think at a buyer's guide, at a buyer's guide of four bedrooms, three bathrooms in the same area. It's 3 million. It's gonna be at least 15 million. I think.
Georgie 24:05
That's...
Geoff 24:06
I think, because there's a, yeah, $15 million. So I don't think, you're definitely not making money on this. Because if the I mean, you could actually do the calculator here.
Georgie 24:14
But the rooms are small as well. Right? If you if you had the same like amount of space, but you had like larger rooms. That would be nicer, probably live in, if you had a family, whatever.
Geoff 24:25
So your deposit would be $184,000 which is not too bad. But your repayments would be like 85... $86,000 a month. So multiply that by 12. I don't think you're gonna make money on this.
Georgie 24:44
They must be losing money.
Geoff 24:46
86,000, multiply by 12. That's a million dollars a year. Oh my god, at 55... $555,000 rental yield, per annum, no way could you afford the rent, the, the repayments on this.
Georgie 25:03
What else could you do? Could you make it into offices? Like, can you like rent them out as an office space? Or like a whole level could be one like... turn it into a WeWork?
Geoff 25:19
What is the cost? I had actually looked this up recently to, of demolishing a house.
Georgie 25:24
Okay, yeah.
Geoff 25:25
Depending on how big it is, it's actually 11,500 I think per square metre. I think it's for cost per square metre. Forty... $65 per square metre. So, square metreage of 658, multiplied by 60. That's $40,000 to demolish it. That's not too bad, but you just spent a million. You just spent, like, 184,000. Actually, that's not too bad. And you have to build the new house. So another 500k on top of that. Hey, I mean, depends on how big your house is. I'm just gonna do a two bedroom, two bathroom.
Georgie 26:12
But you’ve spent a lot to buy this property, especially this land in the first place, like...
Geoff 26:19
Oh, yeah, how are you going to pay back the $86,000 a month? (laughs)
Georgie 26:25
(laughs) I’m trying to think, do you think that it's gonna be like 15 mill, do you think—
Geoff 26:35
Eh, give or take.
Georgie 26:35
Is it very probable that's gonna be several million dollars?
Geoff 26:41
Several, several, I mean, $3 million for four bedrooms.
I mean there’s no way it’s going for cheap, right? There's no way.
All right. I mean, at best 10 million because like 3 million for not even a house and it's four bedrooms.
Georgie 26:50
OK, can I give you some perspective, right. There are some I think I've mentioned this before, but they're building some very fancy like terrace houses that are like four levels, like brand new off the plan. And we want to find out like four levels, right. Four bedrooms, four bath, maybe four bathrooms, I don't know.
Geoff 27:07
Wait, a four level house.
Georgie 27:09
Yeah, like a terrace house. And they're gonna be—
Geoff 27:11
Oh a terrace house. Okay.
Georgie 27:12
Yeah, they're gonna be like four and a half million dollars.
Geoff 27:16
Each.
Georgie 27:16
So I'm like, if this was more—(laughs) if this was more expensive than that. I don't know. Like if you want a brand new house then, fucking just buy a brand new, a brand new like terrace house for like, four and a half million if you could afford that.
Geoff 27:35
That's true. Oh, that's not what I was looking for. Is it this one?
Georgie 27:41
Like how much is, yeah, just look for an existing like terrace house like not a brand new one? Not off the plan. How much is that.
Geoff 27:49
691, is this terrace? Anyways. I think yeah, okay, demolishing a building your place is obviously not a way to pay off this loan. But here's a house a three bedroom, two, and one, it's 2.3 million. So maybe sub 10—
Georgie 28:10
Hey, is that, what was that one that was—
Geoff 28:11
Five to ten.
Georgie 28:12
Four, four bedrooms 3 million. Four bedrooms and 3 bathrooms.
Geoff 28:17
3 million. It’s not even a house though, I guess it's not apples to apples
Georgie 28:23
Yeah, this is a whole, like whole ass land.
Geoff 28:26
This one's a whole ass house.
Georgie 28:30
It’s a terrace house, terrace house, right?
Geoff 28:32
Is it terrace? I don't think it's connected to anything.
Georgie 28:35
Oh, is it?
Geoff 28:35
Oh maybe it's, yeah, it is actually. It's I think it's a dupe... it's terrace is like sandwiched anyways, so I think it's probably 10. Let's go, let‘s go with a healthy 10 million.
Georgie 28:51
I just wanna look at—
Geoff 28:51
Because it does have a rental yield—
Georgie 28:54
...expensive, can you look at the most expensive thing that's recently sold on Domain? (laughs)
Geoff 28:58
I don’t now.
Georgie 28:59
Can we find one that is like 5 million or more?
Geoff 29:02
We could probably do like, Domain, you can do a suburb profile for Glebe.
Georgie 29:09
Oh yeah.
Geoff 29:09
Oh my go. suburb. Glebe. Suburb profile. Ooh, REA versus... 2.4 Wow. This took too long. What am I looking at?
Georgie 29:26
Yeah 2.4.
Geoff 29:27
Here we go. 2.4 million.
Georgie 29:30
Okay.
Geoff 29:30
Twenty-two houses available in the past month, 63 sold.
Georgie 29:32
That’s the median. What the fuck...
Geoff 29:34
That's the median, that’s the median price.
Georgie 29:37
What the fuck, that’s fucked.
Geoff 29:39
Units and apartment price guide, 990. That's...
Georgie 29:44
Everything’s shit. Ooh, four bed house, what’s that? Oh wait we're looking at 14.
Geoff 29:48
Three—there you go. So you got a median price snapshot, four bed house, 3.7 million. So that 14 bedroom house—
Georgie 29:55
Ten to fifteen million makes a bunch of sense.
Geoff 29:57
Ten to fifteen. So really You're actually quite stuck with it, hey. Like you buy it, and then you probably don't make any money on it. And then what? You try and make more money on it. But the like the people that's actually renting there can't pay 750 or $1,000 a week.
Georgie 30:17
Yeah, and you're not going to get people in there who are going to want to—
Geoff 30:22
Yeah.
Georgie 30:23
So then what happens, like, are they going to keep decreasing the price until someone's willing to pay?
Geoff 30:27
Probably.
Georgie 30:28
5 million maybe. I dunno.
Geoff 30:31
Up up the road from us. There's a lot of heritage looking houses, very expensive—
Georgie 30:35
Are they actually heritage?
Geoff 30:36
But they're on, I don't know, they look like they look like heritage, but they're on a road that leads out to the main artery. So like, it's a lot of traffic. And I don't know if anyone's going to buy them. They like, go up for sale every now and then.
Georgie 30:50
Shit.
Geoff 30:51
But yeah, you're just stuck with the house. In slightly tangential related and not talking about our own real estate. Japan's going to introduce an empty house tax.
Georgie 31:05
OK so it—yeah.
Geoff 31:07
Apparently, a lot of Kyoto are empty houses. The really nice looking.
Georgie 31:14
Ohh.
Geoff 31:14
I think they call them cure, Kyomatias.
Georgie 31:16
Just uninhabited?
Geoff 31:18
Yeah, cuz, because it seems that they, um, yeah, Kyo... The, it seems that a lot of these houses were passed down from generation to generation. Old people were there, they died. Gave it to the young ones. And then the young ones.
Georgie 31:36
And now they just don’t need it.
Geoff 31:37
Well, the young ones don't want to live there. It's in the middle of Kyoto with all where all the tourists are, so they just leave it.
Georgie 31:46
So it’s still a tourist area as in like, they’re still—
Geoff 31:48
Yeah. Yeah. And this is why they're apparently introducing the tax is because the... they want the centre or central areas of Kyoto to look lively. They want people around there. So they're just like, hey, why don't we just tax the empty houses so that people move in?
Georgie 32:12
Is this, is that the only city, is Kyoto the only city that has—
Geoff 32:16
I think there's there’s, there's a couple other places, I think, that's... let’s look it up, empty house tax.
Georgie 32:22
Because the thing fascinates me about this kind of thing, where people just go OK, I've got a house here, and I don't want to live there anymore. It makes me think of those places, in very rural areas, like in Europe, wheere a town, a whole entire town, just becomes abandoned, like people, either they live there until they're old age or they live there until they die. And younger people move out and don't come back. And then the building’s just like, abandoned. It's, I don't know, it's kind of bizarre, and then the population has dwindled down to like 10 people or something. Like
Geoff 32:53
It’s brutal.
Georgie 32:54
Then here. They're just like, we’ll charge you. If you don't.
Geoff 32:57
Yep. And so, so the real pickle here I was, that I understand, is that it actually costs way more to—like a lot—to demolish one of these places.
Georgie 33:11
Are they heritage, like?
Geoff 33:13
You pay—no, I don't think they’re heritage. So it costs a lot to demolish. And actually, after, I think that a certain period of time, if you just own empty land, and you don't put anything on it, you also get taxed, you get taxed on the land that is empty. So and it's really expensive slash it's really hard to sell because it's an expensive area.
Georgie 33:35
Yeah.
Geoff 33:35
And it's really hard to rent out because again, expensive area, so nobody wants to live there, not even the people who own it, and it's really expensive to get rid of it. And now you're going to have to pay more money to own it empty.
Georgie 33:51
Yeah, that sucks.
Geoff 33:54
So yeah, it's brutal. But again, like they can't just let Kyoto become like a ghost town.
Georgie 34:01
Yes.
Geoff 34:01
It’s just a tough spot. But I don't know about—owners risk paying six times more in property taxes if they let homes rot. But yeah, it's crazy. So in 1988, about 1 million homes were abandoned, and then ’93, ’98. It just slowly increases to about 2 million in 2003. But in 2018, we're reaching three and a half to 4 million empty houses. That's pretty brutal. What are the stats on empty houses in like Sydney? Do we have any? One in three homes is empty. In this suburb. Which suburbs? Should we buy it?
Georgie 34:53
(laughs) I want to know what some of it is. I need to—
Geoff 34:59
Harbourside enclave, social housing has become—
Georgie 35:02
Millers...
Geoff 35:02
...the Sydney suburb—
Georgie 35:02
...Point.
Geoff 35:03
...with highest population of unoc—
Georgie 35:04
Oh, Millers Point is like it just across the bridge? Is it?
Geoff 35:08
Bridge? Millers point. I think that's Milsons point.
Georgie 35:13
Oops, sorry.
Geoff 35:18
Where the hell is Millers Point? It's right next to Milsons Point.
Georgie 35:22
Oh, is it near the Rocks?
Geoff 35:23
Oh, no way.
Georgie 35:24
The Rocks, hey?
Geoff 35:25
It's near The Rocks. Yeah, The Rocks is empty.
Georgie 35:28
Yeah.
Geoff 35:29
That's kind of interesting. That's unexpected. Like it includes Observatory Hill.
Georgie 35:38
I think there were some, there are, do they have heritage buildings there?
Geoff 35:43
Such as cocoba... cocoba, Copacabana? The entrance and Avoca, 28%. Holiday houses.
Georgie 35:54
Yeah, that makes sense.
Geoff 35:55
Unusually high vacant vacancy in Kensington because of—
Georgie 35:57
Ooh.
Geoff 35:58
Glebe is 14% empty? Might be the absence of foreign students. Oh, that might be why they're selling it, because they don't have enough students coming through to rent the place. So.
Georgie 36:11
Oh.
Geoff 36:11
It’s like dying...
Georgie 36:12
They’re not getting income?
Geoff 36:13
Maybe. I mean, I wouldn't, I wouldn't know what else you would attribute selling it for.
Georgie 36:19
I reckon, frankly, that just not making enough money to warrant owning it anymore.
Geoff 36:25
And the effort to upkeep 14 is interesting. So we have the emptiest city. Emptiest suburb is right in the middle of the city. It’s pretty—
Georgie 36:40
Have you, does, so, have you ever walked there recently?
Geoff 36:46
Oh, recently being, I think I’ve walked around there when they finished—when they were just about finished building The Crown towers, so I walked along the water here. I don’t know if I actually went all the way to Barangaroo reserve, but I’ve also been to Observatory Hill recently, and up and down Langham—
Georgie 37:03
I feel like it’s a very quiet, like, I don’t want to say this in a bad way, but I think part of it’s quite dodgy-looking.
Geoff 37:12
It’s old. Yeah. I have walked around to where they have backyards around some of the houses and it looks, like dilapidated.
Georgie 37:21
Yeah.
Geoff 37:24
To flex a two-dollar word that I can’t think of another word for.
Georgie 37:28
Derelict, that’s probably a one-dollar word. (laughs)
Geoff 37:31
(laughs) Dodge. Yeah, so this is it, right. I just dropped in the middle of nowhere, we’re talking about unfinished fences, fences that are patchworked with corrugated iron, and it’s just not that nice to look at.
Georgie 37:49
Why, do we know why it’s like this though? I guess that’s the...
Geoff 37:51
Yeah. Look, the fence is just completely broken. Um, they’re probably empty—
Georgie 37:55
Shit.
Geoff 37:56
Like no one lives there. So... can see the big crown jewels, the penis tower.
Georgie 37:58
Wait is that what they call it? The crown, the penis tower?
Geoff 38:07
So I’ve—
Georgie 38:08
Did not know.
Geoff 38:09
No, I don’t know how many people call it, but this is what I call it, because I heard it or read it somewhere that these are the crown jewels, I’m like, oh.
Georgie 38:17
Oh my...
Geoff 38:18
It does look like a penis. From above.
Georgie 38:21
Oh shit.
Geoff 38:22
Like if you look at it top down. Um let’s... um, Sydney...
Georgie 38:26
It looks like a pen. One of those, anyway.
Geoff 38:31
Crown jewels.
Georgie 38:32
That’s so fucking funny.
Geoff 38:35
Yeah. Oh. They actually call, they actually call the Sydney Harbour and the Opera House, Sydney crown jewels. Because—
Georgie 38:43
Yeah, right.
Geoff 38:44
Literal crown jewels. Not, not, innuendo. That kind of makes sense. We were walking around and, a lot of them look like they haven’t been occupied since the blacksmiths were there.
Georgie 38:56
Wow and so like, does that mean someone owns them but nothing can be really done?
Geoff 39:02
I guess so.
Georgie 39:03
Until someone’s like hey, I—
Geoff 39:04
I can’t wait for someone to—
Georgie 39:04
...wanna sell this land, or whatever.
Geoff 39:06
Or develop it. I wanna buy the land or the houses and develop it. Someone needs to come in with big money and big ideas.
Georgie 39:15
But then someone still owns, must own this place. Right? Like these places.
Geoff 39:20
Probably.
Georgie 39:20
Oh, you got these real estate signs.
Geoff 39:23
Probably. But you know what else is not owned? Our podcast? The ending to this podcast? We’re not sponsored, so I guess we’re not owned by anything.
Georgie 39:35
I don’t know.
Geoff 39:37
You can’t find us on social media anymore because we really hate X, and Twitter, and...
Georgie 39:42
X.
Geoff 39:43
Mastodon, and all those other—we haven’t even talked about it. How great is that? We hate it so much.
Georgie 39:49
Just keep it that way.
Geoff 39:52
Imagine this: a topic that we hate so much that we want to roast so bad, and, but we never bring it up naturally.
Georgie 39:59
It’s because it’s a can of worms, that’s...
Geoff 40:01
That’s how much.
Georgie 40:03
(laughs) Too much of a can of worms.
Geoff 40:03
That’s how much we hate it.
Georgie 40:05
We know, we know. (laughs)
Geoff 40:06
Um, so, yeah, you can email us, we’re going back to the Stone Ages, everybody.
Georgie 40:11
Let’s do it!
Geoff 40:14
Email us at, at, email us at? On? To? In? Email us at toastroastpod@gmail.com.
Georgie 40:26
And if you put your subject line, sorry, if you put your email in the subject line, sorry, but we’ll know that you’re a boomer. That is a boomer thing right?
Geoff 40:35
What? I’ve never done a subject line.
Georgie 40:37
No, no, as in, put the contents of the email in the subject.
Geoff 40:42
No way!
Georgie 40:43
Yeah, yeah.
Geoff 40:43
People done that?
Georgie 40:44
I had a—I used to work somewhere like, kinda toxic, where the CEO would write like, “I don’t like this, change it”, in the subject line, and there was no actual body of the email. So but yeah apparently, that’s like an older generation thing.
Geoff 41:00
Wow. Just don’t use email.
Georgie 41:00
Correct me if I’m wrong, anybody.
Geoff 41:03
Any boomers out there, let us know.
Georgie 41:06
We also know you do the double space after um, full stops. Wait no, that’s gen X. I think it’s called, what is it called, like a, it’s a not, a crossover, like a carryon from boomers who used typewriters, because you had to do double space.
Geoff 41:26
Double space.
Georgie 41:26
So some gen X... anyway. You can find our episodes on Apple Podcasts, Spotify, wherever you listen to your podcasts, and the big fourteen room, fourteen room, yeah, fourteen room house that’s for sale, and we don’t know how much it costs. Let us know if you buy it.
Geoff 41:44
Yeah. Or don’t, because—
Georgie 41:46
You’ll lose money.
Geoff 41:48
Who wants to, yeah. Yeah and new episodes every Monday, so see you next week.
Georgie 41:52
See you next week.
Geoff 41:54
Bye.