An 'uninhabitable' house without a toilet, kitchen, or power sold for $3.5 million after a heated bidding war in Australia, as people worldwide scramble to buy homes

• A Sydney house without a kitchen, toilet, or power sold for $3.5 million, a real estate agent told Bloomberg.
• The property received 30,000 enquiries in a month, including from the US, UAE, and New Zealand.
• Global house prices surged 7.3% in the year to March - the fastest surge since 2006.

An "uninhabitable" house in a Sydney suburb has sold for $3.5 million ($4.7 million AUD), according to the local selling agent - highlighting just how hot the housing market is worldwide.

The house did not have a kitchen, toilet, flooring, or power, Joe Recep, a selling agent for NG Farah Real Estate, told Bloomberg. The agency received 30,000 enquiries in four weeks, including from prospective buyers in the United States, United Arab Emirates, and New Zealand, he said.

"I've been involved in this industry 25 years and seen nothing like it," Recep told Bloomberg.

House prices around the world have risen as people scramble to buy properties. The global housing price average rose 7.3% in the year to March, the fastest surge since 2006, according to Knight Frank Global House Price Index. The US recorded the fifth-largest jump in the world, with a 13.2% average price rise, Knight Frank's figures showed. This was the US' fastest annual growth rate since December 2005, according to analysis by S&P CoreLogic Case-Shiller US Home Price Index.

The 556.4 square-meter property, located 4.4 miles south of central Sydney, has four bedrooms and two bathrooms, and sold at auction on June 5, according to its listing on Australian property site Domain.com, where it's marked as "sold."

The median price for four-bedroom houses in the Sydney suburb is $3.055 million, according to data from Domain.com based on sales within the past 12 months.

In the listing, the property is described as a "neglected period home" with "uninhabitable interiors in need of major work." It "offers an extremely rare opportunity with big potential," the listing said, and photos show several spacious rooms in a state of disrepair.

The property has parking space for three cars, high embellished ceilings, and is located close to a shopping and restaurant district, and several schools, according to the listing.

In the US, the red-hot housing market is being driven by a shortage of available homes, people moving out of cities to less populated areas, and lumber price rises which have made it more expensive to build homes.