'Depressing' Melbourne tiny house sells for $1.8 million

A tiny house in Melbourne’s Box Hill has sold for a staggering price, leaving social media users “depressed” about the state of Victoria’s housing market.

The three-bedroom, one-bathroom home (if you could call it that) sits on a 678-square metre block, but when land is king, the $1.85 million price-tag makes slightly more sense.

The buyer reportedly purchased the property without actually being able to inspect it as the state is currently still in Stage Four lockdown.

Melbournians took to Reddit to voice their opinions on the 20 James Street sale.

“It's not a house for sale for that much, it's a block of land for sale (that can probably be developed into apartments), with some ‘rubbish’ on it that needs clearing,” a Reddit user said.

But while many on the thread understood the price given the land size, others were left astonished by it.

“Cheers Melbourne Property Market for making me feel even more depressed right now,” one user said.

“I assume the price is mainly for the land as the house is a s***box.”

A user who goes by the username PahoojyMan even calculated how many avocados one millennial would need to stop consuming in order to afford the home.

“At roughly $3 per avocado, one needs to stop eating 618,333 avocados to afford the house,” he said. “In order to afford the house within a modest 30 years, one needs to not eat 56 avocados per day.”

Another used quipped that millennials must also stop drinking iced lattes, too.

Melbourne house prices pummelled by Covid-19

The sale is somewhat of a red herring, with Melbourne house prices falling $32,000 in the three months to June – the steepest quarterly fall of all the major capital cities.

Things have only gotten worse for Melbourne since then, with the second lockdown forcing the closure of more businesses.

Commonwealth Bank forecasts most house prices to post a solid recovery in the second half of 2021, but Melbourne is unsurprisingly left out of this prediction.

“We have forecast a fall in Melbourne property prices of 12 per cent from April 20 to Q1 2021,” CBA economist Gareth Aird said.

Are you a millennial or Gen Z-er interested in joining a community where you can learn how to take control of your money? Join us at The Broke Millennials Club on Facebook!