23 Mitchell St, Nyora, comes with a lot of the features you might expect from a church … but no kitchen or indoor bathroom.
An old church in country Victoria with soaring ceilings, stained glass windows and polished floorboards looks like it could be the perfect place to be turned into a private home.
But, with no running water connected inside, and the nearest bathroom in the Gippsland area church’s decades-old toilet block a decent trek across the more than 1400sq m block – this holy house comes with a little bit of hell.
Barry Plant’s Joanne Gillard is selling the residential zoned property at 23 Mitchell St, Nyora with a $490,000-$530,000 asking price.
RELATED: See what home life is like for MasterChef judge
Melbourne nurse’s $1m+ boost to Good Friday Appeal
How couple in Melbourne’s west turned reno into $585,000
Ms Gillard said while it had been reinsulated and there was water connected outside as well as fairly modern mains sewerage to the property, they were being upfront with prospective buyers that those connections might not be where they’d expect.
“There’s no running water inside the building … and there’s an outside toilet that’s connected to town sewerage,” she said.
“It is very much just an outside toilet block with a look on a block of concrete with some steel walls.”
Also not in its favour, is its relatively low use for the past few decades, so the space is a bit dirtier and has a few more cobwebs in it than you otherwise might expect.
The main building is very much still the church hall it always was … and off to the right you can just make out the grey walls of the toilet block.
Completely open-plan, but with plenty of character, the hall offers opportunity for a reno.
But with the main church hall on stumps, Ms Gillard said it would be fairly easy to connect plumbing to the main building where desired.
Add in stained-glass windows, and plenty of church-hall character, and it’s compelling enough that the current owners paid $374,000 for it back in 2021, according to CoreLogic records.
She added that the current owners had occasionally used it as a weekender — with an air fryer and a microwave as makeshift a kitchenette, though had to get their water from outside.
And despite a few notable absences from the main living zone, the potential home has attracted interest already.
Ideas from buyers have included subdividing the big block to add a second home at the rear, while renovating the church hall as a short-stay holiday rental at the front.
“And it predates usage restrictions, so with the right permits and plans you could do it as residential or for commercial,” she said.
“It’s a pretty good buy for the area. Land value alone would be low-to-mid $400,000s.”
It’s easy to see how even a simple update could set the property apart as a home.
The more than 1400sq m allotment has plenty of room for a second residence.
The building also comes without any heritage protections, meaning the next owner could have it demolished or relocated if desired.
Ms Gillard is keeping an open mind to what its next chapter will look like, with the property’s online listing describing its future as anything from a cafe through to a “shrine to your collection of rare garden gnomes”.
It also pitches the 1422sq m block as “so big you’ll need a GPS just to mow the lawn” and the timber floors being perfect for “sliding around in your socks like you’re auditioning for a ‘90s music video”.
Sign up to the Herald Sun Weekly Real Estate Update. Click here to get the latest Victorian property market news delivered direct to your inbox.
MORE: Radical plan to remove Boomers, fix housing crisis in Melbourne
English (US) · 