Mildura is the only Australian town where a college lease scheme remains.
In Victoria's tropical north, where the Murray River winds, a select group of houses are selling for half of what you'd expect.
The house prices are thanks to the 140-year-old legacy of two Canadian engineers who decided education should be the benefactor of their entrepreneurial endeavours.
In the citrus capital, 184 lots are leased to people and organisations instead of being sold freehold.
Revenue from the lease agreements goes directly to schools in Sunraysia, which use the funds to buy new classroom equipment and technology that they would otherwise go without.
A Department of Education spokesperson said the Mildura Schools Land Trust disburses about $1.95 million annually to 27 primary and secondary schools, providing more funding that benefits more than 9,000 students.
In 1886, the Victorian government signed a deal with Canadian engineers George and William Chaffey to build the Mildura irrigation settlement.
Historian and former primary school principal Bob Walton said the Chaffey brothers set aside one-fifteenth of available land to generate funds for an agricultural college, although this was never built.
Mr Walton said the Chaffey brothers were inspired by a similar scheme in California, their base before coming to Australia.
One home recently sold for a reported $300,000 on Mildura's Lemon Avenue where, across the road, a similar freehold property fetched almost $550,000 two months earlier.