Tizzy's duplex development

Tizzy said:
Today is dig the soakwells day. No I haven't enjoyed it, because now I'm worried they won't work! Still trying to decide whether to fill the holes in and call the professionals or not. Saving $1K a house doesn't feel worth it at the moment.
http://www.somersoft.com/forums/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=6696
On the plus side, I have windows and white plaster and cornices, so gotta be happy about that.
Click to expand...

Hi Tizzy

I have been reading your thread, I can't wait until I start a project like that.
It all looks excellant!!:D

As for your soak wells, a couple of weeks ago someone dropped mention in a thread that they are in Perth and can be hired for dingo work and soak wells,
I got him out to quote, he quoted me $150 per well - not concrete tho. He said the more you have the cheaper they are, I only need one.

Give him a ring if you really are sick of them 0447 776 610 sorry, oh thats bad I cannot remember his name. :eek:
 
Hi Celeste.
Well the pain and the aches of installing the first nine soakwells is starting to fade. :) To be honest, we now feel quite pleased with ourselves. It all turned out okay and cost a total of $700 for all the pipe, wells, socks, blue metal and concrete lids and glue.
Therefore it cost $78 per soakwell in materials . Thats pretty much half price so still worth doing it ourselves.
I was a bit suprised the materials cost as much as they did but we did buy from Bunnings and Soils aint Soils (and not trade).
We'll do the soakwell plan for the second house this weekend, but might wait a week before we install them.
 
Today we dig 9 more well holes and tomorrow we'll sink them and lay the pipes. That will be both houses storm water systems completed. Trying to get most of the digging done today because tomorrow we have a mini heatwave apparently.

There's more room with this house to place some of the wells closer to the downpipes. That means we save in pipe and digging effort. It also should bring the price per well down a bit more from my $78 a well calculation.

There have been some problems with approval for the plans for the front boundary retaining walls though. WE thought there might be, our council is known to be difficult.

The plans drawn up by the limestone contractor aren't acceptable. Apparently they have to be in ink and signed off by an engineer and show the full front view!!

Plus, a metre high front boundary wall has to be constructed to include a setback in the design. That is go up 500, step back a bit then go up a bit further!! Thats more expense and further delay and a total pain in the @&&!!
It will also diminish the pavable area up top.

The frustrating thing is that the extra expense of these retainers is not going to make any difference to how much the place will be worth I am sure. Darn sure it won't bring any additional rent in either, but I can't see an alternative, just have to do it.
 
Right!
Now I know what I spent on the 18 soakwells. It was $1100 all up. That means each soak cost $62 in materials and the job took us three days all up. Funny thing, the second house was finished in the one day. Not sure if we got less particular, or just better at the job. :)

The cabinet maker is fitting the kitchen and bathroom cabinets at the moment.
I can't get in any more either, we are at lock up!!:D
 
I don't have any photos but thought I'd update .
Both houses are painted externally. I'm a bit worried about the cream render on one. Seems a bit bright. I chose the colour to blend with the frames of the windows and the chocolate roof tiles. Wondering if its a bit too pale. The other house is good though its Lundy Grey with black roof tiles and black metal windows.

Internally all the cupboards are in and laminates completed. Happy with them. Wet area floors are now screeded ready for tiles. The grey internal rendered walls are plastered. Everything looks a bit bigger now.

Downpipes are in and painted to match the render. Interestingly there are five drains we put in with the soakwells that will need repositioning. We were a bit off the mark with lining up some of them. Not sure why?? Glad we didn't glue those last bits.

Retaining walls will take a while longer. Plans go to Council and a planning application goes in also. It can take 6 weeks to get the permission, so a bit more delay there.

Need to find a fencing contractor. Noone wants to work. Well thats not true, they're just so booked up. Not a job we can do because the colourbond fencing gets mounted into the limestone retaining walls.
 
I haven't added to this thread for a while but I have handover in 2 weeks from the builder so thought I would update.
Both houses look great. Retaining walls have certainly improved the street appeal. Realistically, I think rental income on each is $350 a week. To sell I'm guessing maybe $430K (aprox). I'm being realistic here because the market has softened significantly in Perth over the past six months.
We've decided these two houses will be sold. One of my sons is ready to buy his first ppor and we thought we might look for an IP we can renovate and keep for ourselves. I want something that will show a little less wear if rented.

So now, we have two possible plans for the next 6-8 weeks. One full list of finishing touches for the houses (about 25K worth ). Or our "minimal" list which is an abridged list ($10,500) just enough to get the places sold. I'll get a few Real Estate agents in to give me some advice here. I want to know what is the minimum finish I can get away with to sell. :)

http://www.somersoft.com/forums/gallery/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=6696
 
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Hi Sparky
These two are in Hocking.
Total spend for the two completed, including all interest to date is $707K. Can't break that down for you here because I'm being naughty and this is a sly log on at work :)o) We've got the final finishes to do, landscape, retic,fencing, wall painting, crossovers, window treatments, sliding wardrobe doors in one house, light fittings, carpets and tiles, 2 sheds to meet council requirements and I've quarantined $25K from the budget to finish off those things.

Change of plans since the weekend though. After a two and a half hour meeting to discuss the pros and cons of selling, we've decided to rent out and review again in 12 months. Like you, we have another project that is complicating things but if we can get out of that one some time in the next couple of months, we look likely to keep these two so I'm happy.

In effect, completely finished they've cost $355 each all up. They would be valued at between $430-$460K but as you know, its not the best time to sell a house.
 
rents in Hocking are pretty good - selling isn't unfortunately - there's an oversupply in Hocking/Tapping, Rockingham, Parmelia/Orelia and Mandurah.

Still they're looking great. Who'd you get to build them?
 
Hi Tizzy

Yes I would definetly agree with not putting them on the market at the moment, if you sell in 12 months you will pick up the discount on the capital gains too so best option all round I would say. Our first one on the new estate will come in at $650,000 all up with end values around $850,000 - $900,000 but I won't be selling these either with rent coming in around $800 per week for the pair. The loan against them will be $550,000 so we can take out equity to put towards the build for the third one.

Kitchens are in and painting almost finished so I would say maybe 4 weeks to go.
 

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These two were built by Danmar and designed by an independent designer.

Yes it is good to see the the rents are improving (finally!!) and shouldn't be an issue getting tenants. I'm undecided about whether to use a property manager though. I've used them twice before and been disappointed both times.

In the next month or two I want these houses refinanced independently of each other. They're crossed to blazes at the moment. The only difference this time around is I'm not game to borrow the holding costs because I have no idea what the capital gain will be over the next couple of years. We'll have to cover the shortfall ourselves.

Thats a good point about the 12 month bonus Sparky. Really it could go either way (keep or sell) but we need to be flexible because our boys plans for buying ppor's come into it.

Sparky your gain is great. I suspect subdividing in the current Perth market blew our time frames to blazes and that has made a substantial hole in our profit. However, I'm still happy with the outcome considering we did not add any of our own cash.
 
You have done well!

One point in our favour was the 12 month settlement on the land and only 5% down which helped minimise holding costs, we have also suffered delays including the 11 weeks it took to get the fire wall certificate which held up the gyprocking - goodness only knows what they were doing wrong!
 
Blue card, I've private messaged those names to you.

Sparky a long settlement is a great bonus.

We applied for green titles and wasted 3 months waiting around while doing that, plus lost all the application costs. Then we did an about face and went for strata when the costs to finalise the greens turned out to be really high. This is one area I feel our project manager let us down badly in.

I'd advise anyone considering green titles to apply for strata first up, get the build process started then apply for green if you want to. With our council, you could not start the build before greet tiltle was granted, whereas with strata you can start the build.
 
Well it's a while since I updated this thread. Thats because I've been so busy (even with a broken foot!). Basically, I've had the houses for 5 weeks now.

To get the keys and ensure full access we paid the builder in full even though the cooktops and water heaters and the roof final inspection were still to be done. Actually they still haven't completed all their tasks, but they are getting done slowly. I had no choice really because time was dragging on and we need these places either tenanted or sold.

We've only had weekends and some week nights to work and these are the finish off costs for the two houses.

sealing and paint (our labour)$1400
crossovers (our labour) $900
front retic $2,500
rear paving/landscape (our labour) $800
lawns/topsoil (our labour) $1800
2 sheds $1400
planting (our labour) $450
gravel/ stepping slabs $400
acrylic lawn $?
washing lines/mailbox $500
light fittings (our labour) $680
8 Bedroom carpets $3750
tiling all floors $8500
slat blinds (our labour) $1800
sliding wardrobe doors(our labour)$1100
hired equipment $450

I won't be adding dishwashers or air con at this stage.


The DIY light fittings were brilliant. I couldn't get an electrician for love nor money so returned the IKEA lightfittings I'd chosen and paid a bit more for fittings I could fit myself.

The cheapest way I could do the window treatments was to use the ready made blinds . They block a reasonable amount of UV but they are very labour intensive to cut down with a hack saw. I found someone who cuts them to size for $25 a blind. Then someone else who hangs them at $20 a blind. Worth it when there are three slat blinds to one opening. I've lost count of the number of times the drill hit holes in the bricks!! Just as well the fixtures cover them.

Painting the interiors ourselves saved a lot of money. I actually think we were very thorough. One coat of sealant to seal the plaster then two coats of China White.

Doing the crossovers ourselves saved a lot also as we were quoted $5500 to do the job, but again it was back breaking work and we were a bit slow.

I expected these places to take 7 months to complete (is that so unreasonable) and here we are 5 months late!

By next weekend I'll be advertising one house at $400 pw rent and the other I'll hand to the agent to sell at $440,000. They have cost $360,000 each to get to this stage so although the profit isn't as high during this softer market, the return it still very good because we bought the block at a good price in the first place. I think this journey has been well worth it. :)
 
Tizzy,

Well done, that's an awesome result. I'm sitting tight on my development until the Sydney market starts to recover. I want to be building into a rising market so that 12 months on when its done I'll get a good price for the one I put up for sale. Current rental yields mean I should then be CF+ on the remaining two that I hold.

Doing all that work yourself is a great way to increase your margin. I've heard it called "sweat equity" before which is a good description of it. We did a lot of the work on our PPOR ourselves and saved a motza. This created a lot of sweat equity that we then borrowed with an LOC and used as deposit on the Mona Vale development site. If you put in the hard yards then you deserve the rewards IMHO.

Well done again!

Cheers,
Michael.
 
Hi Tizzy,

Congratulations on your development....a fantastic result and I am sure that everyone concerned has learnt a heap!

I have never done a development... and was wondering with this particular one what your profit would have been if you had simply subdivided the land, held it for the same period that it took to build and then sold it?

Glenn
 
Hi Glenn, thats a good question.
Holding the block and subdividing would have brought the cost to $320K total. Then they could have sold at $210K each. About $50K each in CG.
 
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