Mortgagee's list 37 affordable housing Toowoomba rental portfolio of Downs Housing

Mortgagee's list  37 affordable housing Toowoomba rental portfolio of Downs Housing
Joel RobinsonDecember 7, 2020

There are 37 affordable housing rental properties owned by the Queensland-based Downs Housing Company which have been listed for mortgagee sale.

Their vast property portfolio set for February 2 auction was focused primarily in the Toowoomba region.

Most of the 37 homes listed by the mortgagee in possession have been owned by the affordable accomodation company for over two decades.

Downs Housing has been previously listed as a subsidiary of Downs Aborigines and Islanders Company. 

The local paper advised government departments had been sought to assist in ensuring continuity of accomodation for the tenants.

The longest owned home, according to CoreLogic registered records, is 13 Whitefriars Street in Rockville (top), which was bought for $58,500 in 1986.

The three bedroom property sits on 715 sqm. 

The priciest acquisition in the Downs Housing portfolio was bought in 2007 when they paid $209,000 for a three bedroom Wilsonton Heights home (below) on 600 sqm.

Mortgagee's list  37 affordable housing Toowoomba rental portfolio of Downs Housing

All of the homes are going to auction February 2 through Success Realty agents David and Angela Harms.

There was a proposal for ASIC for deregister Downs Housing Company in November 2017.

 Mortgagee's list  37 affordable housing Toowoomba rental portfolio of Downs Housing

In the late 1980s the chairman of the cooperative was a well-known retired Aboriginal jockey Darby McCarthy.

The Darling Downs housing company was in the news in the late 1990s after it emerged that a Toowoomba family of 27 was sharing a three-bedroom home.

Bill Taylor, the then Member for the Toowoomba-based federal seat of Groom, said the situation highlighted the need for improvements in accountability and management in the administration of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Commission funding.

The company indicated it had sought funding assistance in the late 1990s from ATSIC through the office of the then Aboriginal Affairs Minister John Herron.

Joel Robinson

Joel Robinson is a property journalist based in Sydney. Joel has been writing about the residential real estate market for the last five years, specializing in market trends and the economics and finance behind buying and selling real estate.

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