Browse Forums General Discussion 1 May 17, 2011 5:00 pm Hi There, We have been looking at building our own new house, but mostly the new estates are in outer suburbs or where we do not really want to live. We want to build and live inner city in Brisbane, but from what we have been looking at lately there are obviously mostly only older or smaller houses there, unless occasionally the odd one pops up hat has been demolished and rebuilt or renovated. So we have started considering the option of buying an already vacant lot or lot with an old house on it and demolishing that house and building a new one on the land. I have absolutely no idea yet whether it is worth it financially, if it would be a lot more expensive, if it is harder with council permits, etc and I have no idea where to get facts and figures or any research available on the pros and cons of this to help me get started, so I am basically starting at the bottom and trying to figure out whether it is worth it or not. Has anyone done this or know how to do this? Are there any good books or other sites on how to do this that anyone knows about? What is the best avenue to do this? Does Metricon homes or an equivalent builder do this sort of thing, obviously easier to go through someone who handles all the details for you if possible. Any help would be grealty appreciated as I am completely and utterly at a loss where to find the answers that I need to make an educated decision about whether to proceed down this path or not. Thank you so much in advance for any help guys! Re: Buying an inner city vacant lot and building a new home. 2May 17, 2011 6:23 pm If you google search "home demolition" im sure you could contact a few of them to find out what the cost are to rip down an old house in the areas you are looking in Re: Buying an inner city vacant lot and building a new home. 3May 17, 2011 7:08 pm We are doing this but in Adelaide . There was a fire in the original house so the owners decided to demolish and sell the land instead of re-building themselves. The biggest problem so far has been the council the land is in a conservation zone so they were very strict with what we were able to build . We were 7 months in council and finally got approved 3rd time lucky !!! Then we found a significant tree that was missed originally and that has caused a whole load more worry and MONEY Fingers crossed we are now 3wks off actual building work starting and I really hope it will be worth it in the end as its a very beautiful and old area of Adelaide Re: Buying an inner city vacant lot and building a new home. 4May 17, 2011 11:23 pm we did it in melbourne two years ago. well, we are 8km from the city, so not inner city as such, but inner suburban. definitely an older established area though. in our area there are lots of older houses being knocked down and developed, either for new houses like ours or townhouses; our council is used to it and it isn't a particularly heritage/historical area, so our council was quite okay with what we wanted to do. might be worth going into the council offices of the area you want to build in and having a chat with them about what they are likely to approve or what they like to see in new developments. some of the volume builders will build in established areas also; best to have a chat with a sales person in a display village of the building company you like. they may charge a surcharge of a few thousand dollars to build in an area they are not used to building in to cover costs of travelling out of their usual estate zones etc. we went with a smaller builder and went through council ourselves for the setback dispensation (we wanted to bring the house forward on the block than what the normal regs are - they were ok with it once we jumped through a few hoops for them lol). the builder handled the building permit though. good luck with your project, look forward to hearing more about it on the forum! "Your emotions are the slaves to your thoughts, and you are the slave to your emotions." — Elizabeth Gilbert Living in our new house. Currently scaping the land. Re: Buying an inner city vacant lot and building a new home. 5May 18, 2011 4:20 pm Thanks so much guys, I REALLY appreciate your thoughts, experiences and ideas. So hard to know where to get started and if the trouble you go to in order to do it is worth it or not. But it sounds as though even throughout the challenges you face, it is nice to live where you want in the home you want. Will start exploring it further to see where it takes us! Thank you so much! Re: Buying an inner city vacant lot and building a new home. 6May 25, 2011 3:58 pm You can also sell a house on a block - Drake Homes buy old houses in Brisbane. I have been looking into this myself recently as I live in inner city Brisbane and love it but hate old queenslands. We have looked at quite a few different options - one good one we are looking at is Imagine Kit Homes in Logan. Their architects do the whole council application for you which makes it easy. We wanted to save a fair bit as our block cost quite alot - with them we can be an owner builder and project manage the build - they organise all the trade quotes for us. At least they are based in Brisbane and they really helped us work out our budget and are helping with the banks too. Hi I live in a 100yr old semi and my neighbour added an additional floor last yr and our architect has advised that we can knock down our semi and build a free-standing… 0 37693 10 15743 3 1152 |