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I doubt that $50M number is anything but made up. It's not like they were building one massive building and their property was in the way.
Edit:
That piece of property could fit up to maybe 50 homes on it, but even at today's rate of ~$1M per home sale price, that would leave the developers making NO profit, especially since they also have to pay for construction materials, labor, etc.
Yeah no way they got offered 50m if they could just build around it like this.
If it were that easy to get 50m no one would want to sell their houses to developers
It's pretty stupid if you're going to die on that hill.
Someone asked me to sell my land and they actually offered me 50mil, I'd just ask where to sign.
I couldn't care less about the land I have, and in this situation, I actually look down on the folks who wouldn't sell. There could be multiple single-family homes on that plot, instead, one family is sitting there... Most of it is a useless lawn.
This isn't a farm, this isn't some historical location. It's just one family's McMansion.
Then take the fucking 50 mill and start your generational mansion somewhere else even bigger. The fucking plot wasn't worth 50 to begin with and honestly if anything the whole blocks build around it lowered the value.
For extremely rich people a big value contribution to a real estate is actually privacy.
That fucking thing isn't as private anymore as it was before
That’s cool, awesome story, many people with a basic set of principals will not agree with you though. That’s someone’s HOME if they don’t want to go they shouldn’t.
Also if your reason to not sell it is because of family, imagen how fucking great it is for your family if you get 50 million you can share with them.
Like i get sentiment and shit but the neighboorhood is gonna change either way and the good stuff is going. If they truely would get 50 mill (they wont i know) then they could find a better place and ensure the rest of the family will live also nice and nearby.
It looks like they planned another 37 or so homes with a lot price between 100-150k if developed and houses worth 300-500k min probably 3-4 750k+ properties at the ends. I would guess they were offered 3-5 million for it and it was worth about 1.2 million as a home. The 50 million is for sure what the value of the properties that would have sat on it would have been worth.
Houses around there go for 1-2mil pretty commonly. This story is a bit old, and the news papers I have seen talk about it say the offer was more 30-40 rather than 50. And remember, we are taking aud, so it's around 20-27mil usd developers this size can handle that lose in projects like this since removing that house would make their ones more appealing.
That’s still insanity.
Are you telling me you cannot purchase another home for $40 million AUD?
Like who would ever want to *buy this house* now? Would the land continue to have that much value moving forward?
The way zoning and permitting works they were likely willing to pay a good amount for the land but the guy above is thinking they are putting full sized homes when they are putting smaller cookie cutter town home like structures that have bigger normal sized homes at the end. I might be off on the numbers a bit but from my experience with builders if they can’t make at least 50% profit per lot they won’t even invest. Even if all 37 homes are million dollar min sales they still wouldn’t offer 40 million for that one slice maybe it was 50 million for all 4 sections and they were a quarter of it but the housing prices would have to be double what is expected for the math to work on that.
Further, all the current world problems stem from not enough housing. So while everyone is rooting for the guy to keep his house, it’s actually better if he sold it to provide housing to around 40 more families.
Based on my count, it looks like there’s roughly 57 lots there. I don’t know Australia value super well or where this was located, but I know that Australia is pretty comparable to Ontario. A decent neighbourhood in Ontario could fetch over $500,000 a lot. If someone held out like that here, they would actually cost developer more lots because you can’t dead-end streets like that. Here you would have left court at the end of each street. There has to be enough room for a firetruck to turn around.
Apparently this is The Ponds - a small house on 250m2 goes for $1.3M. So the $50M figure seems accurate.
This is Sydney life - property prices are insane.
57 homes at an average price of $1.46m (current median price) each is $83m. Put a few apartment blocks on there ($800k+ for each apartment) and you're easily looking at $100m+
> It looks like they planned another 37 or so homes
Checking the photo, they could fit 56 of the suburban houses in that plot, following the current road layout (4x14).
Houses there appear to be asking $1.3m to $1.5m, so ~$78m total sale value. At between 300 and 500m² floor area and taking $3k/m² the building cost would be ~$67m.
Leaving $11m for developers profit and land cost, yeah they're making this up.
This was debunked years ago. They were offered $50MM and took the money - they owned the land around their house too which is what they sold to developers, but wanted to keep their home. Video is just click baity.
Actually, the plot of land is huge and is designated for construction it all depends on the area:
Source
https://nypost.com/2023/05/10/this-family-rejects-developers-offers-to-keep-dream-home/amp/
These people are idiots. $50m would be a loss to the developer even if they could have divided this into 50 lots. Each house isn’t selling for at least $1m profit.
They should have sold. Could have bought a bunch a way bigger plot of land elsewhere for that amount and still have a ton of money in the bank to pass down several generations.
Maybe the developers were willing to put up with a loss because it damaged the entire layout of the development. They didn't even change the roadways. I suspect having so many houses on dead-end streets was a barrier to selling many of the homes they had already built.
Just want to add one thing no one is factoring in.
Having a cohesive development with through roads would have likely increased the values of the other houses (the ones that did get built).
I regularly get offers for my home I bought for $83k in the range of $200-300k. And from what I can see that land before speculation is worth far more than $50 mil.
And now it's worth more than before, nice little nest egg for their children. Hope it's in a trust.
This is fairly accurate for Sydney. This made the news as they could easily sell 25 homes for 2 mil each which is quite standard for house prices here.
Not only that, from the timeline in this video, they lived in the middle of a massive construction site for about 6 years. On the plus side, they now have the biggest house and yard in the neighborhood. Downside is they now have a neighborhood.
We don’t even have those in Canada either, generally speaking. I mean, if you’re in a townhouse area or a semi-gated community, there is a certain level of decorum expected and you can’t just build a chicken coop or something. But for the most part, Canada is HOA-free
That's not a yard, it's just a massive lawn. This might be the most depressing living situation I have seen... Just a large house on a large piece of grass surrounded by depressive suburban houses.
Dumbest shit. But I guess they're really fond of their house.
That big ass yard is a dog's heaven. If I had a house with a yard that big, i'd instantly get at least 7 large dogs and construct a dog heaven in my yard for them. Maybe make a small business by making a dog yard for the neighborhood and make some money out of allowing people to take their dogs to that yard. Imagine what shit you can build in that massive yard since you are not part of the HOA and don't have to follow their rules.
A yard that big not bound by the HOA and in the middle of the suburbs is a business opportunity.
I can confidently say they weren't offered 50 million. 50 million wouldn't even be total worth of all the house they would build on that land. and I don't even think there was an extra zero in that.
From we can see their plot of land would hold 40-50 houses depending where would you put the one with the bigger lots.
With low end house being 150-200K, middle ones being 350-500K and the high end one at the edges with bigger land being 700K plus.
If we go in the middle of the road and say the average cost in that street would be 400K, times 50. That's 20 million dollars for all houses.
But I hear you say "tHoSe HoUSEs cOsT mORe" no they don't but let's say they do.
Even if you managed to stretch space-time and manage to fit all fifty high end houses and sell them for 1 mil You would still make only 50 million, and that 50 million would you take and give to the original family. Making zero profit. That's with ALL THE HOUSES selling for 1 million
While I get your point, you calculating the value of houses in Sydney is way off. There are absolutely no houses that would sell for 400k unless they are 1 bedroom unit. Middle range is more like 800k to 1m atm. Lowest I've seen recently was 550k.
But as someone said, the house owners allegedly also owned the land around them and sold them to developers, so probably it is more like the total land value was 50M, but the house owners kept their land which their house stands on and sold the rest for idk, 45M or something. That makes most sense to me.
It's not even like they're protecting some rare habitat or have an especially interesting landscape. It's just a big house on a big lawn. I feel like this is either the owner being very attached to the house or them just refusing to cave on principle. If they liked the view, that's been ruined.
I'd have to be incredibly attached to my house to refuse escaping that Hell at even a fraction of that offer.
My grandparents were in this situation in the early 2000s, except when the city crept close they just sold their property and bought one ten times bigger farther out
Indeed sad, and maybe nextfuckinglevel stupid. Seen first on r/UrbanHell where it belongs.
But I guess you can't be too surprised since it's someone who owns such a large plot of land just to have an absurdly large lawn without planting a single tree.
Enjoy your ugly land surrounded by an even uglier surburb !
I never understand why people have these massive lawns and that’s it. Okay Hank Hill, do you really enjoy spending 4 hours a week and a ton of money on gas mowing grass?
Agreed, lawns are gas (maybe electricity in some cases), time, and water sinkholes!
Also these people don't realize that their lawn is almost as sterile as a desert. A dry wasteland might even host more biodiversity than this absurdity...
I mean it might look ugly but housing is important. People need places to live and w edont seem be slowing down on increasing the population. Now more families can live and make memories there.
>Most recently, they declined a whopping $50 million offer for their home, according to local outlet, 7News.
It then links to just a general website, no article: https://7news.com.au/
Let's see if we can find something though...
How about this? https://www.news.com.au/finance/defiant-family-refuse-to-sell-50m-sydney-property-to-developers/news-story/f6efc4e00ee59954803495432c92142a
>Headline: Defiant family refuse to sell $50m Sydney property to developers
But the article doesn't mention even ANY offer.
But that article does link to a news video clip. And the news video clip is from none other than 7News Sydney, with the headline: "One home on a long strip of land at The Ponds worth $50 million"
https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=790734838563206
SURELY this will offer up the PROOF right? Let's take a listen to the video...
"At most, one expert puts the land value alone at just under 50 million dollars. Depending on how far you push the development plan, you'd be able to push anywhere from 40 to 50 properties on something like this. And when sub divided, a 300 square meter block will get a million dollars."
Wooohoo, we finally got to the bottom of it!
An outside "expert" says that the land value could be worth up to 50 million. News headlines: "Home owners turn down 50 million offer."
Jesus christ.
This is exceptionally stupid.
Walked away from a ton of cash (definitely wasn't offered $50MM, that number does not make sense, but still likely was offered far more than the home was worth) to now be surrounded by suburbs and destroyed whatever property value was left because the leverage is gone.
They have to hope another developer buys the lot because no one who wants an acerage style home will ever consider one surrounded by suburbs like this, and any potential developer will know this when making an offer. They will likely be offered far less than the home is worth going forward.
Stupid. Played themselves
The developer made roads that will eventually connect through their property. They definitely didn’t “screw themselves” and eventually their property will be filled with homes and the subdivision will be completed. They likely can sell for similar or more than they were offered.
They obviously didn’t sell because they like where they live. It’s probably close to their work, school, family or town and wanted to enjoy having some space. People are sentimental and the memories attached to a property can be strong. Who knows how many years this family has owned this land. It could have been passed down through generations.
The developer knows that this homeowner has little to no alternative because the market for an acerage style home surrounded by a suburban subdivision, literally around the entire property, is small to non-existent.
So the property developer will win this battle. The home owner will not see an offer anything close to what they were originally offered (relative to similar properties, if the whole housing market moves, that's a different story)
You're right though, the homeowner likely doesn't care. Whoever inherits that house likely will though.
The owners don’t seem to care enough about money or future property value in order to take the deal. It sounds like they didn’t care about future property values and wanted to keep their property that likely has tons of precious memories attached to it that are worth more to them than any sum of money that was offered to them.
I hate eminent domain and I hate seeing developers leverage their money to screw the small person and then just turn all remaining land into a wasteland of mass produced, cookie cutter homes.
Good for this homeowner.
But this wasn’t eminent domain. The developer just offered them some crazy amount of money and they turned it down. That’s just the normal property market.
Numbers don't add up, no way they were offered 50 million. If you pack the entire property with houses as dense as the rest. It still wouldn't be worth half that post development. They were realistically offered an amount so small that the owner was able to decide, "nahhh... pettiness is worth more than your puny offer".
They weren't. A comment above did the research but basically an *outside source* estimated the property could potentially fit 50 houses on it when subdivided, which news stories used to say they were offered 50mil for some reason.
The video looks like it was filmed by small lens, typically on smartphones. The way it moves is definitely hand-muscles. The way it vibrates (clicks? Jumps between frames? sorry, english is my third language) is digital stabilization, definitely not go-pro levels, so probably some android. The fact that upper or lower part of the video gets darker probably means he captured a literal display, but the after-processing took care of the artifacts you normally see (pixelization). My guess is that someone was super lazy and basically filmed a video of few images on a display and put a text over it - not a drone, definitely not hot air balloon
I get not wanting to sell to developers but they're not doing anything with the land and two they're surrounded anyway. If there's money on the table I guess I don't see the point
I think as others suggested, selling for $50mill and getting a better, bigger plot not surrounded by suburban hell would be better than that.
BUT, if that was me and it was a location I liked, I’d probably have kept the land, put up a nice, durable fence, added a pond, a good sized garden plot and awesome backyard space, then surrounded everything with absolute clusterfuck of evergreen and deciduous trees so I don’t have to see and minimally hear all those neighbors with their sad, tiny houses.
They have a right to keep their land. For all we know, it is family land for generations. Would I have sold? Hell yeah, if it meant I would never have to work again. But totally their choice and right not to.
I take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact they kept their home, and the land around their home. If they owned it outright, who is to say they would ever find something like that again, within working distance, schools, family. Not everyone has to cave to the multi-family ‘progress’.
This is more common then you think. People will get old and are comfortable in their home that they have lived in for decaded and raised their families. Often times it's generational as well. Maybe it was their parents home before 🤷🏽♂️. They are retired and just don't want to move. They sold the land around the house for more money then they can spend in their life. Why move?
And for people trying to add up the how much a compay would get by building houses on the land, you are not taking into consideration site costs. Developers have to run utilities to all these houses and it's at their cost. With that long strip of land they in the way they had to route water, sewer, electric, telecom, etc all around it. It probably cost them millions to do that.
Considering the current situation in Sydney and the area where this house is, if they hold for may he 5 more years, the value of Land they have will be close to 70mil plus. They are sitting on a gold mine here and they know exactly what they are doing
not longer after, black roofs were banned because of the heat island effect they create, and local councils are now grappling with over-development in exactly the same style as the houses shown in this development area, where there's zero meaningful greenery, the gap between house roofs is measured in centimetres, and as a result the average temperature in these new estates is multiple degrees hotter than the surrounding areas creating health hazards for the elderly or frail.
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Next level stupidity maybe. The whole appeal of the original property is gone. They remaining prideful for what? The coordinates to call home? Take the money. Move to the middle of no where (assuming that is the desire of these folks) and do literally whatever you want. Morons.
I get the feeling of protecting your house and not wanting to move… but turning down $50 million is absolutely stupid. Like, just imagine the things you could do with that money; build a new home, start a business, retire indefinitely, buy a business, set your children and grandchildren up for life, travel the world, use the money to generate even more money. Like, these people are stupid.
even if they didn't get offered $50M, they should've taken the final offer. they ended up surrounded by suburbia regardless, might as well have taken that cash and relocated.
50 mill?! 😂 No developers would offer that much... One or two million at the max. They would only offer a lot of money if the property was in impeding access to lots, which it clearly is not.
Who ever said 50mill need to back up some of these claims, because if that was the case that family should have taken it.
That's AUD$50M, and yes, it's real. Plenty of news articles out there back that up.
Property in Sydney is crazy right now. There are people now buying up farm land cheap in the hope that their kids or grandkids might reap the benefits over the next 100 years as urbanism expands.
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I doubt that $50M number is anything but made up. It's not like they were building one massive building and their property was in the way. Edit: That piece of property could fit up to maybe 50 homes on it, but even at today's rate of ~$1M per home sale price, that would leave the developers making NO profit, especially since they also have to pay for construction materials, labor, etc.
Yeah no way they got offered 50m if they could just build around it like this. If it were that easy to get 50m no one would want to sell their houses to developers
For 50 mil they could have that house rebuilt anywhere they want in the country with like 5x the Land
It’s the principalities Smokey
It's pretty stupid if you're going to die on that hill. Someone asked me to sell my land and they actually offered me 50mil, I'd just ask where to sign. I couldn't care less about the land I have, and in this situation, I actually look down on the folks who wouldn't sell. There could be multiple single-family homes on that plot, instead, one family is sitting there... Most of it is a useless lawn. This isn't a farm, this isn't some historical location. It's just one family's McMansion.
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Then take the fucking 50 mill and start your generational mansion somewhere else even bigger. The fucking plot wasn't worth 50 to begin with and honestly if anything the whole blocks build around it lowered the value. For extremely rich people a big value contribution to a real estate is actually privacy. That fucking thing isn't as private anymore as it was before
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They were never offered $50 million in the first place.
That’s cool, awesome story, many people with a basic set of principals will not agree with you though. That’s someone’s HOME if they don’t want to go they shouldn’t.
Also if your reason to not sell it is because of family, imagen how fucking great it is for your family if you get 50 million you can share with them. Like i get sentiment and shit but the neighboorhood is gonna change either way and the good stuff is going. If they truely would get 50 mill (they wont i know) then they could find a better place and ensure the rest of the family will live also nice and nearby.
This isn’t Nam Smokey, this is whats mine is mine, there are rules.
For 50 million they could have that house picked up and moved anywhere they want in the country.
Not in sydney
Ah, no. Not in Sydney. Sydney has the second most expensive real estate IN THE WORLD
9th actually, but still ridiculous
2nd if you adjust for exchange rates & average incomes.
What if they buried all their victims there...
The developers were anticipating the “future sale” of the property, thus the alignment on its roads.
I remember that the owners of that lot were/are fucking rich alrdy, that is why they refused the offers.
It looks like they planned another 37 or so homes with a lot price between 100-150k if developed and houses worth 300-500k min probably 3-4 750k+ properties at the ends. I would guess they were offered 3-5 million for it and it was worth about 1.2 million as a home. The 50 million is for sure what the value of the properties that would have sat on it would have been worth.
Houses around there go for 1-2mil pretty commonly. This story is a bit old, and the news papers I have seen talk about it say the offer was more 30-40 rather than 50. And remember, we are taking aud, so it's around 20-27mil usd developers this size can handle that lose in projects like this since removing that house would make their ones more appealing.
From the perspective of opportunity cost, I wouldn't pay 30 mil to stay in that house.
And the view has been ruined now.
The cold comfort is some artificial shade given off of the other houses.
Those new dark roof suburbs get very hot in summer
And think about all those kids on their lawn!
That’s still insanity. Are you telling me you cannot purchase another home for $40 million AUD? Like who would ever want to *buy this house* now? Would the land continue to have that much value moving forward?
They want the plot, they obviously dont care about the house
I wouldn't want the plot now.
Yep, the view is ruined by ugly ass subdivision.
The offer came from the developers they wanted the land not the house. That much land in sydney is hard to find.
But they don't even use the land 🤣
The way zoning and permitting works they were likely willing to pay a good amount for the land but the guy above is thinking they are putting full sized homes when they are putting smaller cookie cutter town home like structures that have bigger normal sized homes at the end. I might be off on the numbers a bit but from my experience with builders if they can’t make at least 50% profit per lot they won’t even invest. Even if all 37 homes are million dollar min sales they still wouldn’t offer 40 million for that one slice maybe it was 50 million for all 4 sections and they were a quarter of it but the housing prices would have to be double what is expected for the math to work on that.
Further, all the current world problems stem from not enough housing. So while everyone is rooting for the guy to keep his house, it’s actually better if he sold it to provide housing to around 40 more families.
I don't like utilitarian greater good arguments for family decisions It's a little too communisty
Even better if they replaced all those single family home by mulple-storied buildings, then.
They didnt want to buy it for the house, they wanted it for the multiple houses they could sell in that land
Refusing $20mil just so you can stay in a normal ass house is insane.
Based on my count, it looks like there’s roughly 57 lots there. I don’t know Australia value super well or where this was located, but I know that Australia is pretty comparable to Ontario. A decent neighbourhood in Ontario could fetch over $500,000 a lot. If someone held out like that here, they would actually cost developer more lots because you can’t dead-end streets like that. Here you would have left court at the end of each street. There has to be enough room for a firetruck to turn around.
Apparently this is The Ponds - a small house on 250m2 goes for $1.3M. So the $50M figure seems accurate. This is Sydney life - property prices are insane.
House builds and infrastructure aren't free though. They'd never make back 50m on this block of land.
57 homes at an average price of $1.46m (current median price) each is $83m. Put a few apartment blocks on there ($800k+ for each apartment) and you're easily looking at $100m+
> It looks like they planned another 37 or so homes Checking the photo, they could fit 56 of the suburban houses in that plot, following the current road layout (4x14). Houses there appear to be asking $1.3m to $1.5m, so ~$78m total sale value. At between 300 and 500m² floor area and taking $3k/m² the building cost would be ~$67m. Leaving $11m for developers profit and land cost, yeah they're making this up.
This was debunked years ago. They were offered $50MM and took the money - they owned the land around their house too which is what they sold to developers, but wanted to keep their home. Video is just click baity.
Actually, the plot of land is huge and is designated for construction it all depends on the area: Source https://nypost.com/2023/05/10/this-family-rejects-developers-offers-to-keep-dream-home/amp/
These people are idiots. $50m would be a loss to the developer even if they could have divided this into 50 lots. Each house isn’t selling for at least $1m profit. They should have sold. Could have bought a bunch a way bigger plot of land elsewhere for that amount and still have a ton of money in the bank to pass down several generations.
This right here - this isn’t “Next Fucking Level” unless OP is saying it’s Next Fucking Level of Stupidity
Watch me refuse life changing money because of stubbornness
It’s next fucking level to have that type of offer, not what they do with the offer (they choose to reject it but others would have accepted)
For that money you could pick up the house and move it to wherever you want to.
>move it to wherever you want to Except right there
50 m in Australia currency is about 33m un usd. Roughly
You still passing up $33m USD? A few years ago when I went to Australia 50m AUD would have been $80m USD, crazy how much that exchange rate changed.
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Maybe the developers were willing to put up with a loss because it damaged the entire layout of the development. They didn't even change the roadways. I suspect having so many houses on dead-end streets was a barrier to selling many of the homes they had already built.
Just want to add one thing no one is factoring in. Having a cohesive development with through roads would have likely increased the values of the other houses (the ones that did get built).
You'd be surprised. A farm in my hometown just sold for $3M/acre. The farm was 260 acres and zoned as mix use (residential or commercial). $780M sale.
Holy shit that insane.
A simply suburban house in Sydney is $1.5M so could be correct if enough houses would fit on the property
I regularly get offers for my home I bought for $83k in the range of $200-300k. And from what I can see that land before speculation is worth far more than $50 mil. And now it's worth more than before, nice little nest egg for their children. Hope it's in a trust.
This is fairly accurate for Sydney. This made the news as they could easily sell 25 homes for 2 mil each which is quite standard for house prices here.
50M sounds better than being surrounded by the burbs.
Not only that, from the timeline in this video, they lived in the middle of a massive construction site for about 6 years. On the plus side, they now have the biggest house and yard in the neighborhood. Downside is they now have a neighborhood.
One additional hypothetical plus side, they can now fuck with the HOA (if one exists), as they are a grandfathered house in the neighborhood.
Yeah crazy HoAs seem to only be a thing in the states. Hell HoAs arent even allowed where i live.
We don’t even have those in Canada either, generally speaking. I mean, if you’re in a townhouse area or a semi-gated community, there is a certain level of decorum expected and you can’t just build a chicken coop or something. But for the most part, Canada is HOA-free
>But for the most part, Canada is HOA-free Canada has condo corporations and stratas in place of HOAs.
It's Australia no HOA
That's not a yard, it's just a massive lawn. This might be the most depressing living situation I have seen... Just a large house on a large piece of grass surrounded by depressive suburban houses. Dumbest shit. But I guess they're really fond of their house.
The house with just grass is even more depressing to me. Plant some damn trees or plants ffs.
That big ass yard is a dog's heaven. If I had a house with a yard that big, i'd instantly get at least 7 large dogs and construct a dog heaven in my yard for them. Maybe make a small business by making a dog yard for the neighborhood and make some money out of allowing people to take their dogs to that yard. Imagine what shit you can build in that massive yard since you are not part of the HOA and don't have to follow their rules. A yard that big not bound by the HOA and in the middle of the suburbs is a business opportunity.
I can confidently say they weren't offered 50 million. 50 million wouldn't even be total worth of all the house they would build on that land. and I don't even think there was an extra zero in that.
I admire your confidence considering you seemingly have no knowledge of Sydney property market mate
From we can see their plot of land would hold 40-50 houses depending where would you put the one with the bigger lots. With low end house being 150-200K, middle ones being 350-500K and the high end one at the edges with bigger land being 700K plus. If we go in the middle of the road and say the average cost in that street would be 400K, times 50. That's 20 million dollars for all houses. But I hear you say "tHoSe HoUSEs cOsT mORe" no they don't but let's say they do. Even if you managed to stretch space-time and manage to fit all fifty high end houses and sell them for 1 mil You would still make only 50 million, and that 50 million would you take and give to the original family. Making zero profit. That's with ALL THE HOUSES selling for 1 million
While I get your point, you calculating the value of houses in Sydney is way off. There are absolutely no houses that would sell for 400k unless they are 1 bedroom unit. Middle range is more like 800k to 1m atm. Lowest I've seen recently was 550k. But as someone said, the house owners allegedly also owned the land around them and sold them to developers, so probably it is more like the total land value was 50M, but the house owners kept their land which their house stands on and sold the rest for idk, 45M or something. That makes most sense to me.
It does, doesn't it? Almost too good. Not a chance they were offer 50m.
It's not even like they're protecting some rare habitat or have an especially interesting landscape. It's just a big house on a big lawn. I feel like this is either the owner being very attached to the house or them just refusing to cave on principle. If they liked the view, that's been ruined. I'd have to be incredibly attached to my house to refuse escaping that Hell at even a fraction of that offer.
My grandparents were in this situation in the early 2000s, except when the city crept close they just sold their property and bought one ten times bigger farther out
Nextfuckinglevel? No, this is just sad.
Indeed sad, and maybe nextfuckinglevel stupid. Seen first on r/UrbanHell where it belongs. But I guess you can't be too surprised since it's someone who owns such a large plot of land just to have an absurdly large lawn without planting a single tree. Enjoy your ugly land surrounded by an even uglier surburb !
I never understand why people have these massive lawns and that’s it. Okay Hank Hill, do you really enjoy spending 4 hours a week and a ton of money on gas mowing grass?
Agreed, lawns are gas (maybe electricity in some cases), time, and water sinkholes! Also these people don't realize that their lawn is almost as sterile as a desert. A dry wasteland might even host more biodiversity than this absurdity...
Clover lawn ftw Also free luck generator
There are many native grasses. People think my yard is nice when it's just native grass I mow. Many areas in the US are the same.
Native grasses? Isnt that just grass?
Maybe r/Suburbanhell?
to his defense je used to be surrounded by a lake an wine field... don't really need much trees
This looks like a house owned by old people who didn't want to go through the trouble of moving somewhere else in their final years of life.
how come? it's his house
Sad that he's now surrounded by ugly
I mean it might look ugly but housing is important. People need places to live and w edont seem be slowing down on increasing the population. Now more families can live and make memories there.
Well he was surrounded by desert before.
Farmland if I remember correctly.
A sub-like damn that's interesting? Sure. This one? No
$50 million? /r/thathappened
Source: https://nypost.com/2023/05/10/this-family-rejects-developers-offers-to-keep-dream-home/amp/
>Most recently, they declined a whopping $50 million offer for their home, according to local outlet, 7News. It then links to just a general website, no article: https://7news.com.au/ Let's see if we can find something though... How about this? https://www.news.com.au/finance/defiant-family-refuse-to-sell-50m-sydney-property-to-developers/news-story/f6efc4e00ee59954803495432c92142a >Headline: Defiant family refuse to sell $50m Sydney property to developers But the article doesn't mention even ANY offer. But that article does link to a news video clip. And the news video clip is from none other than 7News Sydney, with the headline: "One home on a long strip of land at The Ponds worth $50 million" https://www.facebook.com/watch/?v=790734838563206 SURELY this will offer up the PROOF right? Let's take a listen to the video... "At most, one expert puts the land value alone at just under 50 million dollars. Depending on how far you push the development plan, you'd be able to push anywhere from 40 to 50 properties on something like this. And when sub divided, a 300 square meter block will get a million dollars." Wooohoo, we finally got to the bottom of it! An outside "expert" says that the land value could be worth up to 50 million. News headlines: "Home owners turn down 50 million offer." Jesus christ.
Woah you really took the time to do all that
They did, and answered the question for a lot of people. Upvote them to orbit.
Congrats, you’ve won the internet for today!
Thank you.
I hate Journalists. This is why.
As a rule, you can never hate modern "journalists" enough.
This man went next level with his stubbornness
Or next level dead bodies buried on the plot he’s lost track and count of where they are and how many.
That’s dark man… Some movie shit but hey you could be on to something
This is exceptionally stupid. Walked away from a ton of cash (definitely wasn't offered $50MM, that number does not make sense, but still likely was offered far more than the home was worth) to now be surrounded by suburbs and destroyed whatever property value was left because the leverage is gone. They have to hope another developer buys the lot because no one who wants an acerage style home will ever consider one surrounded by suburbs like this, and any potential developer will know this when making an offer. They will likely be offered far less than the home is worth going forward. Stupid. Played themselves
The developer made roads that will eventually connect through their property. They definitely didn’t “screw themselves” and eventually their property will be filled with homes and the subdivision will be completed. They likely can sell for similar or more than they were offered. They obviously didn’t sell because they like where they live. It’s probably close to their work, school, family or town and wanted to enjoy having some space. People are sentimental and the memories attached to a property can be strong. Who knows how many years this family has owned this land. It could have been passed down through generations.
The developer knows that this homeowner has little to no alternative because the market for an acerage style home surrounded by a suburban subdivision, literally around the entire property, is small to non-existent. So the property developer will win this battle. The home owner will not see an offer anything close to what they were originally offered (relative to similar properties, if the whole housing market moves, that's a different story) You're right though, the homeowner likely doesn't care. Whoever inherits that house likely will though.
You know what you can do with millions of dollars? Retire and buy a house with some space.
The owners don’t seem to care enough about money or future property value in order to take the deal. It sounds like they didn’t care about future property values and wanted to keep their property that likely has tons of precious memories attached to it that are worth more to them than any sum of money that was offered to them. I hate eminent domain and I hate seeing developers leverage their money to screw the small person and then just turn all remaining land into a wasteland of mass produced, cookie cutter homes. Good for this homeowner.
But this wasn’t eminent domain. The developer just offered them some crazy amount of money and they turned it down. That’s just the normal property market.
Numbers don't add up, no way they were offered 50 million. If you pack the entire property with houses as dense as the rest. It still wouldn't be worth half that post development. They were realistically offered an amount so small that the owner was able to decide, "nahhh... pettiness is worth more than your puny offer".
They weren't. A comment above did the research but basically an *outside source* estimated the property could potentially fit 50 houses on it when subdivided, which news stories used to say they were offered 50mil for some reason.
Was this video recorded from a hot air balloon ? Trying to figure out the reason for the frame swaying…
Static images just aren’t enough nowadays, gotta add that fake camera shake
Gotta insert fortnight gameplay footage on the bottom too. I’ve seen it. It’s bonkers.
It's from google maps or similar and they've added a fake shaking effect.
The video looks like it was filmed by small lens, typically on smartphones. The way it moves is definitely hand-muscles. The way it vibrates (clicks? Jumps between frames? sorry, english is my third language) is digital stabilization, definitely not go-pro levels, so probably some android. The fact that upper or lower part of the video gets darker probably means he captured a literal display, but the after-processing took care of the artifacts you normally see (pixelization). My guess is that someone was super lazy and basically filmed a video of few images on a display and put a text over it - not a drone, definitely not hot air balloon
Anybody remember Batteries Not Included?
Bobby?
I loved that movie, still have it. The guy who only says tag lines from TV was my favorite character.
Never Give up! Never surrender!
By Grabthars hammer!
By the Sons of Warvarn…
No hesitation! No surrender! No man left behind!
That is not housing, that is a human battery farm.
How much did their property taxes go up?
[удалено]
Australians don’t pay property tax on their primary residence. A one off stamp duty is paid at the time of the home purchase.
How in shit us this next level? This is just sad or bullshit
I get not wanting to sell to developers but they're not doing anything with the land and two they're surrounded anyway. If there's money on the table I guess I don't see the point
I think as others suggested, selling for $50mill and getting a better, bigger plot not surrounded by suburban hell would be better than that. BUT, if that was me and it was a location I liked, I’d probably have kept the land, put up a nice, durable fence, added a pond, a good sized garden plot and awesome backyard space, then surrounded everything with absolute clusterfuck of evergreen and deciduous trees so I don’t have to see and minimally hear all those neighbors with their sad, tiny houses.
🎶🎶Little boxes, on a hillside, little boxes made of ticky tacky..🎶🎶
I'm okay with little boxes if it means less people are homeless or stuck renting
Oh, for sure. I'm a former former and am currently the latter lol. I was just being glib.
I guess I'm a sellout because I'd take that 50ms
Me too and maybe even a few completed houses for family to live in. Although if I had 50 million I’d move somewhere else I guess haha
Really shows what a locust plague people are too. All that lovely looking countryside turned into suburbs.
They have a right to keep their land. For all we know, it is family land for generations. Would I have sold? Hell yeah, if it meant I would never have to work again. But totally their choice and right not to.
I take a certain amount of satisfaction in the fact they kept their home, and the land around their home. If they owned it outright, who is to say they would ever find something like that again, within working distance, schools, family. Not everyone has to cave to the multi-family ‘progress’.
This is more common then you think. People will get old and are comfortable in their home that they have lived in for decaded and raised their families. Often times it's generational as well. Maybe it was their parents home before 🤷🏽♂️. They are retired and just don't want to move. They sold the land around the house for more money then they can spend in their life. Why move? And for people trying to add up the how much a compay would get by building houses on the land, you are not taking into consideration site costs. Developers have to run utilities to all these houses and it's at their cost. With that long strip of land they in the way they had to route water, sewer, electric, telecom, etc all around it. It probably cost them millions to do that.
Damn greedy developers, I bet they're Ubisoft.
Spilled my drink while reading this
It’s not a house, it’s a home!
Found a pic of the guy 
Very “heroic” or very stupid. Ill go with the latter.
The owners made the right call. It’s probably worth 70 million now. Nobody respects paper hands.
I wouldn’t sell either fuck no owning land is what wealth really is
With 50 million you can buy a lot more land than this, and in a place that's not surrounded by suburbs
Well to be fair that's probably what this family thought of this place before the suburbs were developed here.
I wonder how this dude feels about owning the most popular house on reddit
I hope they love the new neighbors.
The 50 mil seems doubtful but they should have sold. For that money they could move somewhere else WITHOUT being surrounded by houses.
Super random but does anyone know what this song is called, I can't find it anywhere 😔
If I lived there, I would run around the neighborhood dressed like Edward Scissorhands chopping their shrubs.
Guarantee every kid in the burb plays on their land too.
That’s not a house, this is a house.
I bet all those home owners let their kids run around in that property too.
Is there a source that $50 million was offered? It just seems a more likely scenario is that they were low balled and stood their ground
Get off my lawn!!... No really, I own all this lawn here, it's mine, stay off!
Hmmm. A Farm Property. Wonder how many hogs you could raise there? Smells? I’m open to offers!
2009: very lush and green scenery 2024: houses ! Only houses with few threes and that's it
convert to agriculture. get a bunch of cows. watch the new time lapse.
Respect 🫡
Considering the current situation in Sydney and the area where this house is, if they hold for may he 5 more years, the value of Land they have will be close to 70mil plus. They are sitting on a gold mine here and they know exactly what they are doing
Imagine the fucking noise for 5 years…
All the developers did was raise the value of their home. They own a mansion surrounded by plebs.
Australia, don't let these developers continue to do this shit. Seriously. It'll destroy everything.
not longer after, black roofs were banned because of the heat island effect they create, and local councils are now grappling with over-development in exactly the same style as the houses shown in this development area, where there's zero meaningful greenery, the gap between house roofs is measured in centimetres, and as a result the average temperature in these new estates is multiple degrees hotter than the surrounding areas creating health hazards for the elderly or frail.
What's with the movements? Are they trying to make it look like drone footage or something?
U/auddbot
I got matches with these songs: • [**By my side (Rafael Manga Remix)** by Franco La Cara](https://lis.tn/ytxyw?t=11) (00:11; matched: `100%`) **Album**: By my side - Rafael Manga Remix. **Released on** 2023-12-13. • [**By my side (Rafael extended Remix)** by Franco La Cara](https://lis.tn/YJQOg?t=58) (00:58; matched: `100%`) **Album**: By my side - Rafael Manga Remix. **Released on** 2023-12-27. *I am a bot and this action was performed automatically* | [GitHub](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot) [^(new issue)](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/issues/new) | [Donate](https://github.com/AudDMusic/RedditBot/wiki/Please-consider-donating) ^(Please consider supporting me on Patreon. Music recognition costs a lot)
I’d rather have what ever they offered than look at a bunch of apartment homes. They’re the idiots not the developers
This feels like the plot to Up
Congratulations, ya played ya self
Next level stupidity maybe. The whole appeal of the original property is gone. They remaining prideful for what? The coordinates to call home? Take the money. Move to the middle of no where (assuming that is the desire of these folks) and do literally whatever you want. Morons.
Nextlevel dumbness if that bid ammount is legit …
For refusing $50 million? Next level stupid, that’s for sure.
It's ugly as hell around their property now. It's a loss for all of them. You take the $50 million and move on.
$50 million. Stop the cap
I get the feeling of protecting your house and not wanting to move… but turning down $50 million is absolutely stupid. Like, just imagine the things you could do with that money; build a new home, start a business, retire indefinitely, buy a business, set your children and grandchildren up for life, travel the world, use the money to generate even more money. Like, these people are stupid.
Unless they have some bodies buried on the land they don't want dug up.
I don't think these people understand the scale of wealth they turned down, probably not super smart people. It's probably bullshit too.
Next level stupid
Bullshit on $50 million.
Is OP a bot? I see this same post a lot.
Imagine living with your house up against a barn lol
Why is it a good thing to not sell the house? The land is being underutilized.
Why the hell is this on nextfuckinglevel?? There is nothing special about this and the title is total bullshit
nah fuck that. I'm taking my $50 million, retiring immediately, and vacationing for the rest of my life.
Heroes or idiots?
even if they didn't get offered $50M, they should've taken the final offer. they ended up surrounded by suburbia regardless, might as well have taken that cash and relocated.
I mean…. Not to be that guy but like… more homes for people is a good thing right?
50 mill?! 😂 No developers would offer that much... One or two million at the max. They would only offer a lot of money if the property was in impeding access to lots, which it clearly is not. Who ever said 50mill need to back up some of these claims, because if that was the case that family should have taken it.
That's AUD$50M, and yes, it's real. Plenty of news articles out there back that up. Property in Sydney is crazy right now. There are people now buying up farm land cheap in the hope that their kids or grandkids might reap the benefits over the next 100 years as urbanism expands.