ozbaz

Hi

I have been frantically researching ( why , I don't know, as we only just began the application process) Australian house market around Sydney. Suppose we have to know what we could afford and how much we could sell our house for.

A lot of Houses are either wooden, or Brick veneer, or some other lightweight material. Well, I like wood, but i wonder how solid or soundproof these type of houses are. And then I came across a couple of houses described as 'with flexible floor- plan'!! ( ie' at the moment 3 bedrooms...")
Does that mean you can move walls here and there , make teenagers room really small one day to annoy him, and when you have guests show off your huge living area???

I am drawn to nice old cottage style houses with an all-round veranda...but they all look like a gust of wind could blow them down!

Garden fences are all corrugated iron or something like that..reason being bush fires???

I appreciate some tips on house buying, so I can narrow down my search ( freeing up time to finally get some housework done!)

Thanks

NickyC

Whereabouts in Sydney are you looking?

Sydney has a complete cross-section of housing types. Brick veneer will be common across the newer outer suburbs (built since 1960s) but rare in the older ones. Our house is double brick as are most of the houses around here. Wooden weatherboard houses are typical of inner-city suburbs and were mostly workers cottages. Considering most of them would have been built over a hundred years ago and are still standing – you can’t say they’re flimsy!

Some new housing developments have covenants that require garden fences to be metal. It’s got nothing to do with bush fires and more to do with giving the suburb a uniform look and avoiding termites. You find just as many garden fences are wood.

Flexible floor plans usually mean you can do what you want with the rooms. Five rooms could be five bedrooms - or three bedrooms, one dining room and a study - or four bedrooms and a rumpus. Up to you what you use them for.

Jan4kids

We live in a predominantly wooden 'Queenslander' (raised wooden house with wrap round verandah) It is beautiful and homely, but at times is like living in a glorified packing crate lol!

The idea of insulation is beginning to catch on, but single glazing is very much the norm.Very 'bouncy' with lots of kids and sound travels far too easily with the plaster board walls....but I still love it. The worst aspect is lugging the grocery shopping up the stairs...oh and the rubbish down

Once I got used to the 'flimsiness' of Australian housing and stopped mourning the loss of my radiators I actually like living with the Winter season as an Australian....rugging up,ugg boots,beanie, log burners, bed earlier with a thick doona (duvet) in the colder months. Nature seems to feel alot closer here all year round, and you appreciate the powerfulness of mother nature.

Get a double brick home if you can...they are old enough to have character and have great insulation properties....although once heated through by the sun the retain heat and glow like an oven for days Older properties are sometimes on bigger blocks(plots) too.

One of the best things about Australian house designs is that usually you will never have two houses the same in one street.....very refreshing.

The metal fences are quite weather resistant and most importantly are unedible by termites. We also have a tin roof which is easily replaced if damaged by hailstones and doesn't retain heat in Summer (or Winter)

All quite different, different indeed

Best Wishes with your plans.

Wol

A few years ago nothing would have persuaded me to have a brick veneer house, but having built in the States and now in Oz I have seen several building methods and can see the advantages and disadvantages of each.

You don't have the thermal mass in a veneer home, but the walls can have a relatively good insulation value, and the inevitable movement doesn't show as it will in a brick/plaster house.

I wouldn't say that one is better than the other, just that either way is OK if the house is built well. But that's another story <g>.

bridie

our house is what they call fibro....... no complaints really, it's easy enough to heat up and keep warm (now we have insulation in the roof void!), I guess the walls are thinner than we had before (we built - double brick) but you get used to it.

must admit i was dubious, we even discounted the house after a drive past as we wanted brick BUT now we are in we love it, has a really homely cosy feel (unlike our other house) and fairly easy to extend if required

Vash the Stampede

There's some fantastic old 1920s-30s weatherboard houses in Launceston (Tassie) that are still going strong.

Just drive into town via the West Tamar Highway and you'll see a whole string of them on the outskirts of Trevallyn.

ozbaz

Thanks, thats all very insigthful information.
When it comes to house bying we tend to be impulive, goign with the 'feely-good factor' rather than rational thought!
I am already sitting the veranda of my cladded 100 year old house , with mature trees and shrubs making me feel like a live in a little oasis....

oh..and we live in Sydneys West- North West, maybe as far as Penrith or Richmond , depends what you get for $ 330.000 max ( no mortgage!)
Better wake up now!!