Anne4Terry

Been having a good look at houses both while we were out in WA and on the internet. All the newer houses seem to have the tiniest little gardens unless you have more money to spend than us

The older properties in general have bigger gardens but are only 3 bedroom and 1 bathroom places. I am generalising here. We wondered about if it would be feasible to buy an old house with a bigger plot and put an extension on it? What are the planning laws like out in WA? Specifically Perth area?

Be great if anyone can give us a few pointers on this.

Thanks

Anne

Santa

Yep you can, in fact it's a very popular thing to do here. What you tend to find is that people put a 'lid' on........ i.e. an upstairs bedroom, with a bathrooom and a parents retreat.
The only issue you have at the moment is that the building industry is flat out and they are charging top whack for any work. One of the largest homebuilders has just closed his Showhomes for a month as he has too much work on !!

Badge

As far as I am aware, it was the norm throughout the 70s, 80s and 90s.
Bit of history as was explained to me - many traditional homes were, say, 3 bed built on 1/4 acre blocks. Look at the house in the advert where that aussie cricketer's Dad warms up his car. typical working class home from the 70s. Many established homes in older areas - especially areas that are desirable are now the very result of more affluent owners adding extensions/wings on to their homes. Some homes are a literal composite of brick veneer and wood - some are purely ugly as a result and an architects nightmare - our neighbours for example. However they are nonetheless priced according to size, block size, location, views etc.

In the last 10 years or so, there has been a shift away from homes on large land to big perfect purpose-built homes on small plots as many aussies hate DiY and mowing etc. Apparently it is because aussies grew up with chores and DiY and mowing that they want the ease of a perfect build on a small plot.

Planning permission notwithstanding, you could do quite well in terms og getting what you want by buying a smaller home and extending. We will need to build a 4th bedroom eventually, and may as well build a few rooms.

One of the things I love about Australian homes is the sheer variety (I sound like Mike Stanton now lol ) of the plans and layout. People come to our little house and love theback, they're surprised - looks like a hut from outside, we go to other houses that look innocuous and hey wow what a layout.

Badge

JackTheLad

Councils can be a real pain in the butt about extensions too. We had 8 months of back and forth discussions with our local council about a little granny flat we wanted built. It all depends on the land, and what they can find to complain about. And as Santa says, builders are flat out too, so it could take over a year to get any extension built.

JTL

Anne4Terry

Thanks for that both of you. I will send some grateful karma

My husband is a qualified builder and plumber and my brother-in-law who lives where we are going to is an electrician so I'm sure between them they could do all building work!!

Oh my husband is going to just hate me when I tell him I've got jobs at home lined up for him already before we even get out there :scared:

Anne

Badge

How much space is there JTL? I guess the biggest problem is lack of privacy of the neighbours - ie. noone wants your flat overlooking a deck etc.

All the houses in the street have sheds, annexes. Hopefully we can do the same.
It's a good ten years away anyhow.

BAdge

JackTheLad

Space wasn't an issue, we have 1/2 an acre. Firstly we wanted to extend the garage horizontally to add a 1 storey granny flat - council replies, no sorry thats where the storm water flows. So then we got a design done for a flat further up the garden - councils reply, no sorry, thats where the main sewage pipe for the whole estate runs . So then we got a design done to build on top of the garage. That finally got clearance from the council. But it goes to show, it doesn't matter if you've got a load of land spare to build on, council can find something to stop you anyway.

We've basically discovered that our land is useless (in a building sense), we can only build upwards, not outwards,

JTL

Badge

building upwards would give us a view - I know from climbing on top of the garage to do the gutters.

However looking E off the side of the top floor verandah we would cop the neighbour's pool and spa. Solution: make sure we cannot see off the E side of the verandah lol we don't care the S view is good enough.lol

BAdge

Santa

One other thing you may need to consider is that you'll need some decent cooling for the summer as upstairs can get pretty warm. You will find reverse cycle tends to be the best, and it gives you heat in the winter..... funnily enough mine is on now ! But it is expensive to run in the summer.
The other poster was quite right, the new blocks are poxy.......but I dont think its much to do with Aussies not wanting to garden, I think it's more to do with the developers getting as many houses as possible into a tiny space.

Pollyana

Something else they apparently do with Queenslander houses is to actually raise the house and build underneath it - as these houses are on stumps or poles I guess its reasonably straightforward to raise them up another storey.
Still need to get hold of builders etc though, especially with the Aussie laws limiting DIY without going on courses first

Badge

indeed - very much so, but it's a little theory that was put to me.
I love having space and land, I wasn't brought up with it, but to some it's a nightmare.

Badge

Anne4Terry

Would this mean that my husband would need to get his bricklaying qualifications recognised over there? He is already going to get his plumbing recognised as that is how he is going to earn a living but I don't know if we can be bothered to get his other stuff sorted just for some DIY.

Santa

You might well be right Badge.......my guess is it's the bloody developers putting that one around though.
The new places here are so close together you can shake hands with next door leaning out you bathrooms. Give me land !

Pollyana

Lots of people could tell you better than me, as I don't know a lot about it, but I know I found out some basics when looking for a job with QBuild - they inspect houses on behalf of Qld govt, and deal with builder's licences. It turned out that doing over a certain amount (financially) of work on a property meant that the person had to attend a DIY training course, and if an individual wires their own house (or presumably does stuff like plumbing as well) then it has to be inspected by the govt!
Rules probably vary from state to state, but I guess the basics are probably the same. Explains why DIY isn't as big a home industry here as in the UK.

Santa

I think Polly's right, an old friend just moved to Perth, he had a small building company in the UK, but is plastering as he needs to get a ticket to build here.