Abandoned block of toilets sells for $315,000: 'Extraordinary'

While Australia's property boom has become the stuff of nightmares for first-time buyers, the market over in the UK is as equally daunting. Just ask those who showed interest in what was being advertised as a $38,000 (£20,000) anomaly but eventually sold for a whopping $315,000 (£169,000).

The property you ask? An abandoned block of toilets on a plot barely wide enough to swing a cat.

Of course, the selling point is the unrivalled and "truly spectacular" sea views in one of the UK's most quaint areas, Cornwall. But what you can actually do with the 0.12-acre sliver of land is yet to be determined. "Future uses [are] all subject to all necessary consents," the local auctioneers who sold the property stressed.

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The graffiti-covered structure housing the closed-down toilets does not have an electricity source, with a significant cost expected to install it. Locals in the coastal suburb of Longrock had previously expressed their anger to see the block of toilets fall into disrepair, with some hoping a café could be built on the plot.

Katie Semmens, of Clive Emson Land and Property Auctioneers, said the huge fee paid on Thursday was an "extraordinary outcome" and speculated the buyer had cash to splash, the BBC reported.

Australia's land values soar

The price of the tiny plot comes as it was revealed the price of a square metre of land in Australia continues to soar. The lure of living in the country's biggest cities has seen suburbs such as Sydney's Paddington and Darlinghurst surge to $27,440 per sqm $25,065 per sqm respectively.

In November, a 56-sqm Paddington studio was sold for a whopping $1.39 million - which works out to an eye-watering $24,821 per sqm.

Across the Tasman Sea, a 9sqm 'shed' in Auckland sold for a staggering $300,000 in 2022.

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