We are finally moving on developing our double block. We met the builder we would like to work with, his certifier and the certifier brought along his town planner. We walked the blocks and discussed what we can do with them.
We will ask BCC if we can remove one DCP house, but assume this will be a "no" (though there are precedents in the street). Assuming we have to work around both DCP houses, our plan is to reconfigure two blocks into three.
Plan is to leave one house alone and just build a new back fence. This keeps it out of the DA and means if we hit trouble, we can sell it quickly.
The other cottage will be moved over and raised and either be cut off on its own small block with a new cutover driveway, or will become part of the larger development. The driveway to the rear yards will come up past this smaller cottage.
Depending on a pre-lodgement meeting, we will know how to proceed, but the plan is to run a driveway past the house that will be moved over, and that becomes the entry to four new townhouses in the back yards.
We cannot get finance to build four townhouses at once, but with a staged DA, we could shift/lift existing cottage, build two, refinance those and pull out the equity to build the second two.
The figures I've worked on are like this -
$100K for headworks for the four new townhouses ($27K per house approx)
$50k to raise and move the front house. I'm not sure how much we need to allow to build under, but initially, we could either batten out or weatherboard the bottom and leave it. As long as we can connect up the services and rent the house the building under can wait.
$15K allowance to get below the 1 to 2 metres of fill in the back yard. Soil tests will confirm if we need this allowance or not.
$250K per townhouse (we want reasonably high spec)
$30K driveway to back yards (approx 80 metres)
I'm really guessing with build costs. Builder quoted me ballpark $250K one level house, and high $200 (let's say $300K) for double storey, so I'm hoping $250k per two storey townhouse is enough.
That all comes to nearly $1.2M. We have access to private loan to do the first two townhouses, and then we would rent them, mortgage them and use the funds to do the next two.
The aim is to turn the two IPs that currently are negative into positive territory by adding two townhouses per back yard on "free" land. The rent from two houses is not enough to cover the loans we have. We would be doubling our borrowing but tripling the rent coming in, so the whole parcel should pay for itself.
As rents increase, this should start to put money into our pockets. Once finished, if we have hit financial trouble, we sell off what we need to.
I've not included the costs to get the DA approved, but as far as the actual build goes, how do my figures look?
Is there anything I've missed?
PS. If BCC says "no", we have a Plan B and Plan C, but this plan seems to be the best one so far.
We will ask BCC if we can remove one DCP house, but assume this will be a "no" (though there are precedents in the street). Assuming we have to work around both DCP houses, our plan is to reconfigure two blocks into three.
Plan is to leave one house alone and just build a new back fence. This keeps it out of the DA and means if we hit trouble, we can sell it quickly.
The other cottage will be moved over and raised and either be cut off on its own small block with a new cutover driveway, or will become part of the larger development. The driveway to the rear yards will come up past this smaller cottage.
Depending on a pre-lodgement meeting, we will know how to proceed, but the plan is to run a driveway past the house that will be moved over, and that becomes the entry to four new townhouses in the back yards.
We cannot get finance to build four townhouses at once, but with a staged DA, we could shift/lift existing cottage, build two, refinance those and pull out the equity to build the second two.
The figures I've worked on are like this -
$100K for headworks for the four new townhouses ($27K per house approx)
$50k to raise and move the front house. I'm not sure how much we need to allow to build under, but initially, we could either batten out or weatherboard the bottom and leave it. As long as we can connect up the services and rent the house the building under can wait.
$15K allowance to get below the 1 to 2 metres of fill in the back yard. Soil tests will confirm if we need this allowance or not.
$250K per townhouse (we want reasonably high spec)
$30K driveway to back yards (approx 80 metres)
I'm really guessing with build costs. Builder quoted me ballpark $250K one level house, and high $200 (let's say $300K) for double storey, so I'm hoping $250k per two storey townhouse is enough.
That all comes to nearly $1.2M. We have access to private loan to do the first two townhouses, and then we would rent them, mortgage them and use the funds to do the next two.
The aim is to turn the two IPs that currently are negative into positive territory by adding two townhouses per back yard on "free" land. The rent from two houses is not enough to cover the loans we have. We would be doubling our borrowing but tripling the rent coming in, so the whole parcel should pay for itself.
As rents increase, this should start to put money into our pockets. Once finished, if we have hit financial trouble, we sell off what we need to.
I've not included the costs to get the DA approved, but as far as the actual build goes, how do my figures look?
Is there anything I've missed?
PS. If BCC says "no", we have a Plan B and Plan C, but this plan seems to be the best one so far.
