Wategos Byron Bay
Would you like to be given a property in Australia’s most sought after beach side community? Beautiful, subtropical climate, sweeping ocean and mountain views, dolphins playing in your front yard, great investment opportunity, etc. Sounds like the perfect Real Estate pitch.
Today you can not imagine anybody refusing the offer but I just happened to bump into a Dutch immigrant that came to Byron Bay in the late 50′s, and he told us the story of his friend who had been given land in Wategos Beach by the Byron Shire Council for absolutely nothing.
Yes, back in those days nobody really wanted to live in Byron Bay, a little beach town, far away from everything with the scent of rotten whale corpses. Doesn’t really sound like a holiday destination, does it?
To populate the area the Byron Shire council decided in 1958 to give away land with the condition of everyone having to build a house on it within two years. So they set up a raffle and our ‘informer’s’ friend ended up with the biggest block in Wategos. What a happy man.
I can hear what you are thinking; “I wish it would have been me, big block – what’s it worth today?, he must be a millionaire today and be living the happily ever after.” We don’t know exactly, but what we do know is that this man did not manage to build his beachside shack within the two years and decided to hand the block back to the council. Oops!
