Let them have houses and eat smashed avocado
Outsider has nothing but respect and admiration for those innovative and inventive millennials. Heck, he’s been known to sit through many a TED talk and come out the other side thinking, “Wow, some of these kids are smart. They have to be – because I didn’t understand a friggin’ word of what that young bearded hipster was saying … and I’m widely considered to be a pretty smart bloke!”
Nonetheless, his heart goes out to the poor sods. After all, even with the widely expected oncoming slump in Sydney and Melbourne property prices, some of these lads and lasses may still struggle to get a toehold in that column-inch-creating asset class that is the Australian property sector – even after foregoing their daily ritual of a $5 coffee and $19 avocado on toast.
But all may not be lost if they take a leaf out from the Gospel according to Bill Gertos, a Sydney property developer who in the Supreme Court of NSW last week won the ownership rights to a home in the inner west after finding it empty.
According to the ABC, the court awarded the home to Gertos under squatting laws, despite a challenge from the relatives of the last listed owner.
Gertos told the court in 1998 he came across the empty home in Ashbury (for all you bloody latté sippers in the east, that’s a suburb that straddles Ashfield and Canterbury. Get it?) while visiting a client on the same street. He said he found the house was open and “the rear door was off its hinges and placed to the side”. After changing the locks, he repaired and renovated the home and began renting it out.
So, don’t despair my aspirational youngsters – because it turns out there is a way for you to have it all. Just go out for an evening stroll, pick out a house that looks like it was rejected by the makers of The Amityville Horror for being too terrifying a location upon which to shoot, renovate the thing, et voilà!
Long live the Great Australian Dream!
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