On 10 acres in Jimboomba sits an abandoned house that has not seen its owner for two decades. “Renovators’ delight” would be a vast understatement.
The living room is frozen in time with the original couches in position, a half-finished puzzle on the table and a fridge that is safekeeping old beers.
It is not as if the property is too remote for a suitor. Many people would have passed right by it on their way to Jimboomba along Mundoolun Road without noticing.
The backstory makes it one of the strangest properties that Brooke Colledge from Ray White Marsden has encountered.
“It was used as a weekend home, and one day the owners just packed up and no one returned,” she said.
“They’re still around and their kids are older, but no one ever goes there.”
Mrs Colledge inherited the tricky task of putting it to market when a friend of the family tipped her off about it.
“It’s getting to the stage where I’ve had it listed for a month as land, but I don’t know what to do with it,” she said.
She personally loves it and sees ample character in the house, which could be renovated into something special.
“While it’s quite rundown, this place has loads of potential and character,” she said.
“You’d have to be quite handy or have the patience or know a builder to take it on.”
The house has an octagonal floor plan with a mezzanine level hovering over the living area and jutting out of the roofline to form a turret-like structure with views across the property.
Her big problem now is finding out what to do with it while she investigates what sort of planning approvals it has.
“That’s my main problem,” she said.
“If I don’t want to – or can’t – advertise it as a house because it didn’t have planning approval, or I’m not getting a whole lot of interest as a block of land, then what’s next?”
The mixed responses so far are divided between people who would renovate and those who would knock it down to start afresh.
Mrs Colledge said there is good value in the land.
“The value is in the land, so we’re saying 500 plus, which is pretty cheap for a 10-acre block,” she said.
This is the second time in a short period she has inherited a vacant block of sorts into her folio.
“It’s unusual, you rarely see a vacant block with all the developments going up around Jimboomba,” she said.
Her most recent is a five-acre property in Jimboomba being sold by the children of a previous owner who never did anything with it.
“Same thing – it’s been left for 20 years or longer and it’s going to sell for a similar price.”
