'Not the Taj Mahal': Rundown Brisbane community housing to be sold for charity

Almost 30 years as community housing hasn’t been kind to 48 Hunter Street, Woodridge. The old house has been a home for many desperate families, but it’s since lost its usefulness for Black Community Housing Service.

“It was well loved, a lot of people have gone through there,” the not-for-profit’s chief executive, Sally Corrigan, said. “It can go a lot further as a reinvestment though.”

Black Community Housing is a charity that aims to lift Brisbane’s homeless out of poverty and into their own long-term homes. It’s mainly funded by its tenants’ rent, collected from properties in the charity’s portfolio.

The not-for-profit was building an apartment block in Zillmere and Ms Corrigan planned to use the money from the sale of 48 Hunter Street to fund the development.

Repairing the worn down home would have outweighed the benefit of selling it, she said.

The organisation was in possession of a lot of old homes, which were also becoming too run-down to lease out. Ms Corrigan decided to be pragmatic, and shed the aged properties to fund a new chapter for the not-for-profit.

“I just thought to myself ‘holy moly, we’ve got so much aged stock, what are we going to do’?” she said. “We want to get rid of our aged stock so we want to be able to fund our new builds. What we are doing is forming a model where we’re completely self-sufficient.”

Ray White East Brisbane‘s Ryan McHarg was marketing the property and said when it sells at auction it should be a bargain.

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“There is some value in the house, but it’s not much more than the land value,” he said. “There’s no sugar coating it. There’s holes in a few of the walls, it’s borderline livable as it is.”

“It is livable, but it’s not the Taj Mahal.”

Having said that, Mr McHarg said, the house had great potential and was in a good area for families.

Ms Corrigan said the house was definitely salvageable. “It can be renovated. If somebody had the enthusiasm, they’d love that,” she said, but acknowledged it could be easier to knock it down. In fact, she’d considered that option herself.

“It’s great for an investor looking for a new build or someone who has a passion for renovating,” she said.

The Woodridge home will go to auction on August 19.