bargain or toubles, buying 2nd hand granny flat?

M

motivated 5555

one question is how would i transport the walls of a granny flat i can buy?


re buying a second hand granny flat.
i've spoken to council re permits and size for my yard so thats ok .

my biggest worry is that what if parts are missing
will it end up being a much wanted bargain cheap and much more affordable than new (but this is actually new )
or could it end up with big troubles
dismantling it,
transporting it,
permits,
rebuilding it probably by builder and handyman who dont do granny flats daily like a granny flat company does.

someone was renovating a home and putting a granny flat in.they ran out of money and sold everything. the new owner just wants to get rid of the new but unfinished granny flat and sell it cheap

is it a big deal if some parts might end up being missing? or can building parts always be replaced easy enough so it will still end up a huge bargain.

its a good sized 2 bedroom, kitchen meals and lounge perfect for my garden at a bargain price and i could pay it off fast and have a good income quickly coming in for minimal outlay

new granny flats might be over 65000 totally finished ( on a platform not built in) with permits and everything done by the granny flat company carpets, curtains all finishes.

this one would be under 10 000 for the granny flat itself, maybe i can bargain them down .

but i would have to
dismantle transport store get permits rebuild, carpet, curtains, and have it rebuilt by builder who doesnt work in granny flats daily like the companies do.

would i end up saving a great deal costing maybe 20 000 or 30 000 in total for everything rather than 70 or could it end up being big trouble?

where i want to put it takes a few months for permits and by that time the warrantee on it would be over. If i was doing it in sydney where permits are streamlined to 10 day process currently
then i'd be putting it up within the month and would see if parts are missing and it would still be under warrantee.

bargain or troubles?
 
Last edited:
motivated 5555 said:
this one would be under 10 000 for the granny flat itself, maybe i can bargain them down .
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Sounds like it is already a bargain, mate.

motivated 5555 said:
would i end up saving a great deal costing maybe 20 000 or 30 000 in total for everything rather than 70 or could it end up being big trouble?
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Why don't you ask the builder who you're getting to assemble it?

motivated 5555 said:
bargain or troubles?
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If new is $70K and you are getting this for $10K, then $60K is an awful lot of $'s to fix any troubles you may run into.

You might be over-thinking it here.
 
THANKS.
I've wanted to do this and i think some luck has come my way. just wanted to confirm thanks.

i'm still looking for the builder

and how would i transport it
 
Propertunity said:
If new is $70K and you are getting this for $10K, then $60K is an awful lot of $'s to fix any troubles you may run into.
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What if she stores it for 6 months and the council doesn't approve it? And you have to move it twice, too. That's about the worst of it. But that's completely negated by the fact you could probably sell the thing if it doesn't get approved and not take a loss at all.

I have no idea where you'd store a house while waiting for council approval. Easy solution - get ye to the yellow pages and FIND OUT.

As to possible blowouts - costs of storage and transport. Probably won't add up to much, we paid about $6000 for a 20m long house to go 250km with a police escort and the works because ours was 'extra long' so you'd be looking at quite a bit less than that for transport. Just make sure the transport company is also equipped to put the house on nice level stumps, which should also be a non-issue. Now storage - even at $1000 a month for a year you're still ahead.

How about, instead of messing around for years, you just buy the damn thing and actually DO something? Opportunity is right there, you've spoken to the council, find somewhere you can store a small house and Just Do It.

Geez, someone finds The Perfect Opportunity and they're still trying to back out of it.
 
One thing to check though - when you say 'dismantle' is this a granny flat that was meant to go on stumps or are we talking one on a slab?

If its one on stumps then I'm not sure what you're worried about, those things are *designed* to be picked up and moved :confused:

Having just been through this whole process less than 2 months ago, your biggest expense is going to be hookup to sewer/water, just because it takes 2 days for a pair of plumbers and a very large digging type machine. Probably looking at $2-3k there give or take, add more for gas connection if you're on piped gas, the granny flat probably won't come with a HWS so add $600 for a gas HWS. Small figures. (ours came to $14,000 but that included a $3000 septic tank and $4000 solar HWS and a freakin enormous amount of digging for the septic tank and it took them ages to hook up everything on a house with two bathrooms+laundry+kitchen - lots of pipes!)

Before you do that you need your yard graded and a dolomite pad put down. Probably cost a few $100. Small figures.

We were quoted $1800 for electricity connection including 6m of trenching - got this one free from the FIL but that's an indication. Haven't got the bill for the meter yet so can't tell you what that costs. More small figures.

You're going to need someone to do plumbing/sewer plans to submit to council, that's only a few $100. And someone to survey your backyard and draft up plans of where the granny flat is going to go (assuming they give you the GF plan so you don't need to get them to measure it all up for you) and that'll be a few $100 too. Then add on whatever fee your local council charges for a development application, ours was $1000. Again, small figures.

Are we up to $60,000 yet? :D
 
Its not picked up and moved in one piece

Its dismantled and moved wall by wall

someone handy will have a look at it but still looking for a builder

how would i transport it?

council will approve just a matter of a few months

and also as you say ground needs to be prepared,
existing huge metal shed needs to be emptied and dismantled.

its defintely smoother if a company does all the steps for you for the total price

hoping this is worth it and wanting someone to confirm.
 
thanks rumpled elf thats alot of interesting info to consider

so i should look for something that can be transported in a few big pieces rather than needing taking complete disasembling and reassembling

so if i find one that travels in a few big peices then how do i know they will fit into the garden which has back access as a truck wouldnt quite fit right into the garden nor into the back lane but it would fit into a street one house down.

would a crane lift it in from there perhaps or from the road in front?

thanks.
 
It is a risk, but basically you're saying that it will cost you about half as much as buying it new, so you just have to see whether the risk of this going pear shaped is larger than 50%.
That's how I would look at it anyway.

If you decide that it's too much hassle, please let me know, I'm looking for a nice second hand granny flat right now.
 
motivated 5555 said:
so if i find one that travels in a few big peices then how do i know they will fit into the garden which has back access as a truck wouldnt quite fit right into the garden nor into the back lane but it would fit into a street one house down.
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See, I asked on one of your other threads if you had access to your backyard for a big truck and you didn't answer. This is why it helps to provide more information. And the more information the better. You're notorious for asking vague questions with incomplete information.

If you *need* to break it into pieces anyway, you can't buy a pre-made one, so just go buy the one you're looking at.

If you need somewhere to store it, ring a few container hire companies, find out if they also do storage, and you could get the thing loaded into a container at the site where it is now, move the container to a storage yard, and then have the container plunked at your current house when you need it. You won't get all the interior bits and bobs rained on if its in a container.
 
RumpledElf said:
See, I asked on one of your other threads if you had access to your backyard for a big truck and you didn't answer.
[snip]
If you *need* to break it into pieces anyway, you can't buy a pre-made one, so just go buy the one you're looking at.
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Not disagreeing with you, but you should be able to get a crane to lift it over the house for a couple of grand. Obviously only if the location is suitable for that.
Just mentioning this because that's what I'm planning on doing if I buy a prefab one.
 
thanks so much for all the helpful info especially Rumpled elf who has been very kind and generous with alot of info over time on various strategies for my particular situation.

seems there are many issues and after days of phonecalls its just not suitable with many issues and risks for my property
but not necesarily for others.

theres a back lane access not enough for a big truck enough for a car only.

it seems it would be too big much too big for my garden.
council has laws
minimal change area
buildings only on 50% of the property
40 sq m of secluded garden for each property not including the front yard.


i could only do something very small that wont bring the return i wanted but i'll continue to consider my options.

it does seem to move something whole with a crane is easier than dismounting if you want ot do any permits as one iss ue is you wont have drawings for something bought second hadn to submit

i could do a small one, it if its a dependent temporary unit for a relative without planning permit but then it can only have kitchen or toilet not both
so soemthing that needs to be looked at properly slowly and in the right order of thigns if doing second hand,
or turn to other options totally for progressing my situation.

some said it would cost 20 000 or more to transport but that may not be the only option.

council take months there to give permits unlike sydney
 
Usually the very first thing you do in this situation is measure up your backyard and take it to the council, not the *last* thing ... I hope you're actually taking *accurate* measurements to them, preferably through a surveyor, not just talking over the phone and being as vague as you are on here. Has a council person actually come out to your house to have a look around? Have you had a survey done? If you really have got accurate plans drawn up and you're down by a few square metres, is there any part of your house you can demolish to get extra open space, like an enclosed verandah or something?

Days of phone calls seems pretty tame actually, I swear I spent WEEKS on the phone a while back trying to sort everything out for our house. Telstra was the worst, of course. Trying to get them to do anything is like finding hen't teeth.
 
Also, as I swear I've said several times, you need to provide more information.

I reckon if you'd posted an accurate draft of your block with the outline of your house on it and your council, you would get extremely helpful advice here without us all guessing what you're trying to do - most on here would have assumed you've already drawn up such a draft, worked out the exact square meterages and already checked the council development plan.

Posting your floorplan too would help, because someone might suggest a simple way you could modify it so you can have a 'granny flat' with external entry, kitchenette and bathroom under the main roof and rent out the rest of the house.

Council areas tend to be huge, noone is going to stalk you from a drawing of your property layout + council.

People post this kind of stuff on here all the time, in fact.
 
We built an entire 4x2 recently for about $130k (with $20k of upgrades from default we didn't technically need) and there's plenty of granny flats for sale for $50k + connections so don't see why $60-80k isn't reasonable.
 
Was that 130K through a builder?

3 quotes for 2bdrm 60sqm granny flats - two built on site approx 110-120 plus council s94 etc. The one pre-assembled was going to be upwards of 100k before services were connected.

80k IMO through a builder all-inclusive would be fantastic, but can't see it being realistic.
 
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