fish.01

I think the same process has ramped up in most Australian capitals...state govt's planning how to squeeze in the extra people by going higher density.

coolshadows

Anyone who's been to India, Pakistan, or China (and many other '3rd world' countries) will know that the more affluent areas have very large and grandeur houses (they're not all living in shacks).

Assuming that it's the better off that are arriving from these places?

GarryP

This, but with a proviso.

Plot sizes have got progressively smaller over time as developers seek to squeeze more houses onto the same size of land. That puts their profits up significantly. However its got to the stage where house size and plot size have come close to equality - and with two story houses costing more to build the developers have to come up with a different wheeze to increase profits - thus the statements about units/townhouses etc. under the 'green' umbrella.

The proviso is these won't be cheaper than the current prices - everything will just continue to shift upwards in price.

If they really wanted to be green they would do something about the terrible building practices out here. These are american style poor quality build designs with very poor performance and low life expectancy. You wouldn't be allowed to build such houses in Europe; they are that bad. If someone wanted to be green, it would be relatively easier in the Australian climate to build zero carbon houses - but instead they focus on solar PV panels.

At heart its a failure of planning. The jobs are forced to the city centres, which limits the scale the city can reach through poor commute times from the suburbs - limiting the exploitation of something Australia has lots of - space. Plan that properly and there is no problem with space.

Zambia

Some times in these threads I would like to define what is a big house?

What are the factors that make you decide that's a big house?

Bedrooms , square meter size of land, square meter size of dwelling.

Vash the Stampede

Minimum requirement for me: living space of 150sqm; block size of 860sqm. No point buying anything smaller.

BadgeIsBack

This is the problem. If you're going to move to the suburbs, at least have a big house - create your own life around it. I don't blame Australians.

Small house in outer burbs is a double negative whammy.

coolshadows

There's southern blocks of 220sqm for sale (perhaps you could buy 4 of them? I think they're $120k each).

BadgeIsBack

4 bed, 1 study. More than 2 living areas ie kitchen area, living area (infact maybe more than 3!) Additional custom rooms for cinemas?

jad n rich

We saw a display village where most of the houses are on around 300sm lots, was amazed the blank wall (for privacy/fire safety ) that used to be needed to gain approval in qld is now gone.

All the display homes had completely open living areas, open to the house next door, you could touch the house next door in some of them The total lack of privacy, nothing between you and your neighbours noise, kids dogs, patio, bbq Would be a total nightmare to live in reality.

Several yards were certainly low maintence, the ugly 5000 litre water tank sitting in a tiny square of plastic grass

Vash the Stampede

Utter madness. Of course, the houses will be cheap brick veneer with no eaves and hollow gyprock internal walls.

You'd get better value from a Wendy house parked on the local roundabout.

coolshadows

A growing trend is selling blocks less than 200sqm as 'double storey'.

My old uk property was a modest semi and on 400sqm.

land for sale 198m2 - 30mins south of City

davidclifford

This article seem to contradict the fact that Australian houses are getting smaller.

http://www.smh.com.au/national/home-...1129-jyva.html

coolshadows

I think they are building bigger homes on smaller blocks.

I assume this is the impact of all those double storey lebanese houses that go right up to the boundry on all 4 corners.

pomtastic

Tell me about it and don't forget the crappy aluminium windows with cheap thin glass in most of the houses. Bad for security and insulation and yet getting windows replaced in Perth costs an absolute fortune.

If houses are going to get smaller and more expensive and even more cheaply built I can honestly see Australia will lose it's appeal to Poms.

pomtastic

Ha ha, that reminds me, I went to a display village with a friend several weeks back in Perth, SOR. There were laminated and framed newspaper cuttings on the walls of the display homes telling of the current 'housing shortage' and 'population boom' in Perth and yet the display village was empty.