Man buys entire school for $55,000

A Victorian man has just made the quintessential dream of ruling the schoolyard a reality.

He’s bought the former Speed school, about 140km southeast of Mildura in the state’s north, complete with chalk boards and an old school playground.

The unnamed buyer set their own Speed limit at $55,000 for the 5893sqm property at 15 Main St, Speed – half the price for a house across the road.

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But they’ll only be going back to school on the holidays, according to Elders Robinvale’s Peter Menara.

“The intention is to treat it as a holiday house and extend it a bit,” Menara says.

“Part of the appeal of the property was that it’s an old school and it’s approximately 100 years old.

“And it’s still got the chalk boards in it, and the playground.”

The former Speed school at 15 Main St, Speed.

In 2011 the tiny town of Speed came to fame after it joined forces with the Transit Accident Commission and renamed itself Speed Kills for a month to raise awareness for road safety.

While the sale hadn’t been a speedy affair, taking about 297 days as a change of use permit was locked in, it had been a good learning process.

“We had a lot of interest in the school, but the fact that it took so long to get a change of use permit did put some people off,” Menara says.

The former Speed school at 15 Main St, Speed, even has an old school playground intact.

In the end getting a buyer had been a test of arithmetic and history.

“It’s all about the price, and the nostalgia of buying a school,” Menara says.

“At that sort of money, you can’t go wrong.”

No word on whether they’ve repurposed the bell as an alarm clock.

While Melbourne-based buyers showed initial interest, a six-hour drive put most of them off quickly.

“We had about 60 people who wanted to buy it, but many changed their minds,” Menara says.

Menara’s most recent sale in Speed was a four-bedroom house at 10 Main St that collected $118,000 in January, 2017.

10 Main St, Speed, sold for $118,000 in January 2017.

“There are properties up there that sell, a three-bedroom house, for $80,000-$90,000 — but it’s a very limited supply,” he says.

Besides the old school yard the town consists of a handful of houses, a post office and a petrol station.

“And that’s about it,” Menara says.

This article from the Herald Sun originally appeared as “Old Speed school sells to holiday house hunter for half what a house costs”.