How to buy a house for $5,000: The ins and outs of relocating a home

An ad catches your eye while flicking through Gumtree – “Cheap house, $5,000”. Bargain! And it’s in Sydney, no less.

Naturally there is a catch – the property doesn’t come with the land it’s sitting on, and has to be picked up and relocated.

So how does a buyer keen for a bargain go about shifting an entire house? And why would someone want to get rid of a perfectly good home?

• Read more: The ultimate guide to building a new home

Who sells a house with no land?

Bill Anastasiadis from Management Express is the builder with a house advertised for sale for $5,000. The three-bedroom brick veneer structure is located in Mortdale in Sydney, on a block slated for a new build.

“The other option is a special removalist that comes and jacks up the house on its piers, and takes it away.”

What happens to the houses?

Many relocated homes are sold to professional home movers. Ashleigh Mackay from Mackay and Sons House Removals said house haulage was becoming more popular, with their activity tripling in the past five years.

“It is much cheaper than buying land and building a new home,” she said.

The company operates as a one-stop shop, organising and submitting documents for council approvals, plans and site work, and handling the relocation and restumping.

Once building approvals are organised, road permits are lodged to transport the house. In Brisbane where the company is based, houses can only be transported during the night.

When the house arrives at its new site, it’s immediately restumped. “One day you have an empty block, the next day you have a complete house,” Ms Mackay said.

“We spend two to four days on site, on average. Once it’s stumped, it’s just connecting the services,” she said, adding building certification can take up to three months.

Ms Mackay said Brisbane City Council was one of the best councils to deal with, but they have relocated properties interstate as far south as Newcastle. Queenslanders were the most popular type of home to move.

Another company, David Wright House Removers, has been operating for decades, and has five depots throughout Queensland to store the houses they’ve bought.

“Start to finish, move and restump, roofs and gutters, is about a week,” said office manager Sally Wright. Getting approval can take much longer, depending on the council.

“Up north, in regional areas, it’s really fast – a couple of weeks,” Ms Wright said. “Other councils it’s two to three months. It also depends on the block of land.”

Most councils require buyers to pay a bond of up to $20,000, which is returned in stages as the house is completed, providing an incentive to finish the project.

Buyers may also need to shop around for finance, as many banks deem a move too risky.

Who buys a home to relocate?

Bianca Wakelin is one of Mackay and Sons’ customers. She and her husband Glen bought a 1920s era colonial home and had it transported it from Queensland across the border to Boomerang Beach, south of Forster.

Their project, to restore the property for a holiday rental, has taken around two years and is being documented on Instagram.

The couple had considered a new build, but after working out it would have cost over $1 million for what they wanted to achieve, they were inspired to relocate a home instead after seeing one for sale on eBay.

“When you are looking at a removable home, you have do your research,” she said. “The preparation is astronomical.”

They had looked at several companies before being shown a picture of their chosen house, which at the the time hadn’t come onto the market.

“Out of all the homes they had, we got one of their most expensive, but it was in very good condition,” she said.

It turned out to be one of the biggest projects Mackay and Sons had undertaken, as the house had to be cut into four pieces.

The whole process came to just under $200,000, including about $140,000 for the house itself, plus moving costs and fees. They have since spent about the same amount on renovations and landscaping.

The biggest lesson she’d learned was the importance of finding tradesmen comfortable working with period homes.

“With a restoration – which is what we’re doing – you ask yourself, how long is a piece of string?” Bianca said.

“But is it worth doing? One hundred per cent yes, absolutely. You fall in love so much with these houses.”