Uninhabitable fire-damaged Elizabeth North house sells over asking price after thousands of enquiries

A fire-damaged home in north Adelaide that was deemed uninhabitable has been sold for a price above the asking price after thousands of inquiries.

The three-bedroom semi-detached home in Elizabeth North has been listed for $159,000-$169,000.

Photos of the property show a badly damaged kitchen and rear laundry area, as well as furniture and items scattered in other rooms.

Agent Dominic Cirillo said the property was originally sold before Christmas but the buyer backed out and then resold it.

“The phone rang hot, we sold it again for even more than the first time,” he said.

He didn’t want to say how much it was sold because it hasn’t been settled yet.

But he said he received more than 20 offers and answered thousands of inquiries from local and interstate buyers.

He said he has to conduct viewings every day, sometimes twice a day, to keep up with demand.

“It got crazy — I had 4,000 or 6,000 hits,” he said.

Adelaide is the only capital city market with new record home prices and is bucking a national downtrend, according to a recent report from real estate firm Domain.

According to realestate.com.au, the median price for a three bedroom house in Elizabeth North is US$290,000 – an increase of almost 40 per cent over the previous 12 months.

The listing described the Old Sarum Road property as a “partially fire damaged home at a fire sale price” and noted that the property is subject to a Housing Improvement Act (HIA) order.

Mr Cirillo said the HIA order referred to the fire.

“It’s not habitable, but it just needs to be cleaned up and some roof trusses and roof beams put back in place,” he said.

Mr Cirillo said the property was “70 per cent fine” with most of the damage to the rear of the property.

“The fire started in the rear laundry area and unfortunately spread to the roof area so the rear of the house is quite damaged,” he said.

Mr Cirillo said the property attracted “a crowd of young people” who were first-time buyers.

But he said he had to warn them that they might have trouble getting a home loan from a bank for the uninhabitable property.

“If you’re a young person with a small deposit … they might not give you a home loan,” he said.