Nah, no answer in that other thread (I went fishing for it). And what did that place on Houghton st sell for
I'm not looking for resale value, just cashflow. Two new rentals in this town, paid off or near paid off, would be more than enough for us to live off and close enough to self-manage. Duplex = two rentals. That's my only real logic here.
Land may be abundant but rentals are by no means. Its easy enough to buy land and build a monstrous house that will be worth $500k but if you just want somewhere to live, you're screwed.
Land here is about the same price regardless of size for 'normal' size blocks so yes, small saving (the price of one block of land) by putting two houses on one block, but its still a saving. There is a triple block (3 lots, one title) of land just down the road from me at $69k that could be trivially subdivided along the existing lot boundaries (it is too small to divide into more than 3) and have 3 standalone houses built on it, vs a single block at $45k that can have two attached ones on it. If I was going to buy anthing if my old house sells this year, it would be land that can be split or be dual occ/duplex, and then fund the build by selling our current house. Our current house is a small cottage and is the second-cheapest category of house here, so will never be especially high value or high rental.
There's actually a fair few duplexes here, they are all extremely new (< 5yo), very fancy looking, and attract very high rents because they're new. Its an interesting divide between locals who think $300+pw is high, and people new to the town who think it is cheap. Its very expensive for the country so realistically those high rents won't be able to be maintained beyond about 10 years, which is the timeframe for finishing the wind farms. Think 'mining town' but not quite so extreme, there's plenty of other people besides wind farm workers moving here.
If I was made of cash I'd buy the 23,000sqm lot that is for sale and do a massive subdivision lol ... large (700-1000sqm, but not subdivisible) lots in new subdivisions here attract about $60-65k each. But I don't think that counts as a 'small' subdivision, that's one for a seasoned developer with some serious contacts.
I'm thinking out loud, a bit like a cash-challenged wannabe developer here, don't mind me