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The Park Ridge planning scheme ammendment instrument currently has no criteria for self-assessable annexed units, therefore the ‘fact sheet’ is outdated.
In fact, this fact sheet is already outdated as the LCC area currently has three town plans in effect at the moment. The new town plan will be consolidating these.
We also have some properties which are not ‘self-assessable’ being assessed by LCC town planners. These proposals fall outside of the criterion listed in the ‘fact-sheet’ but due to the lack of self-assessable criterion, the town planners can, and have in the past, approved such proposals.
Hey mate,
You want to have a minimum for a single bedroom (2.4wx3.0L)
For a master bedroom minimums are (3.6wx3.3L)
Hi Kimberley,
What area are you located in? If you are using a private property that you own, and are in the SEQ region we might be able to help you out.
Some pointers to start:
Brisbane bans this type of thing, and run operations catching people out.
For all intents and purposes, Ipsqich bans the same thing.
Heres the interesting thing: Logan City Council allow granny flats up to the size of the existing house, and even rent it out to unrelated persons, all council approved.
So if you are in the Logan City Council area, I would love to help you out. If not, thats fine, you may want to look at buying a property either in NSW (granny flats up to 60m2 can be rented out to unrelated people state-wide) or Logan City Council areas.
Here is a map to the LCC suburbs for your information.
Also, some information here is not entirely true, such as Energy Efficiency. You dont HAVE to insulate walls, you dont have to insulate floor. If you have a sloping ceiling, you can have a height in some areas less than 2.4m. You need to talk to either a certifier or a builder.
We are builder and you can look us up: BSA licence number 1017931
Check out these links for some information:
http://www.buildersbrisbane.com/#!granny-flats/c1dta
http://www.buildersbrisbane.com/#!annexed-units-explained/c1h95
Hi Dao,
Look, I think the maximum is 8 unrelated persons, I could be wrong on this but I am PRETTY sure that this is the case for the local town plan in LCC. Other LCC rules vary. For example, Ipswich city council ONLY allows related persons.
Anything above 8 and you start into boarding house territory, which means you have to comply with different building codes, such as those found in BCA Class 2 – 9 Buildings Volume 1.
BCA Class 1 & 10 buildings volume 2 is where the annexed units and the majority of 1-3 storey homes reside. That is the key to this strategy. You want low cost building methods such as those found in BCA Class 1 & 10 (homes and annexed units are Class 1, sheds, garages and the like are class 10, aerials, fences ect are class 10a).
When you get into building duplexes, townhouses, boarding homes ect, you are at the class 2-9 level. Also, another thing to remember is that local city council town plans have different rules for these class 2-9 buildings and what may be a class 2-9 building in some areas may not be in others.
Yes, its confusing.
It depends how much money you are talking about. Don't be TOO worried about prices of property if they have dropped sharply. If you are comfortable, the general rule is buy when the market is down. Obviously, no one knows where the bottom is exactly until its too late. So if its for pleasure, sure. Why not?
Just don't go dumping millions in there.
Hi Donnie,
Ok in regards to zoning:
No. Zoning is not a deciding factor regarding this. However, land size is. The land MUST be 600m2 or greater. If you have a block of land that is 599m2, this is impossible. Logan City Council is great in regards to zoning however, as they have an R rating. That is, you can 1 dwelling per R value. I.E. a 500m2 in an R250 zone would give you two dwellings. Annexed units are different to dwellings, as they form one household with the house, as previously mentioned.
In regards to the water and power connections:
Whatever way you want to run it is feasible. We have all our power in under our name since we have solar panels. To transfer power to the tenants means we lose solar rebates permanently, and we lose the carbon credits. What we do is read the meter every quarter. You can, however, have two bills come in for the house and the annexed unit. You can even have a separate water meter, although this is really unnecessary as water is cheap in comparison to power.
So there is no short answer to this. As the landlord, you have the power to write your own agreements and find tenants who are willing to abide by those rules, as long as you don't ruin their rights. And that is the whole point of creative investing.
In regards to TrickeyMickey, try posting an ad on gumtree for a family looking for upstairs/downstairs accommodation. This is the most specific type of annexed unit as they must be related. I.E. Brisbane City Council style.
Or, look for single professionals or adult students willing to live in a 70m2 granny flat behind an already established family home.
Actually, the demands is huge believe it or not. We have real estate agents renting our old tenancies out before the new tenants arrive.
When we do our own management, we find our tenants on gumtree. We get around 1 response per hour after 7pm and around double that rate during the day. We have to pull the ads off after around 12 hours of advertising.
So yes, I would say that there is a fairly untapped market in QLD at the moment.
Hi Phoebe.
Granny flats go up fast. The pre-built stuff will go up about as fast as one from a home builder. Many people don't realize once you have closed the place in you are at the half way mark. So don't be fooled. Go with a home builder who has a portfolio of his own investments, as well as some he can show you.
We do this for our clients but we are based in SEQ. Have a look at our website if you want and feel free to ask me some questions I will help you out as much as possible.
Anyways, good luck and make sure you get your services separated, especially electrical!
Hey man,
I know you are looking at the 70k a year positively geared investment stuff. I would tell you one thing that is for sure. Never sell your property unless you are in 2007 or another situation. There is one thing I have learned property investing and that is:
1) If you don't have the equity for a 20% down payment, don't do it. Don't expose yourself to risk.
2) Over the long term, property always increases in price.
3) Pay interest only on your loans. Use an offset account to dump your income onto your loans whilst saving up the next 20% down payment.
We build ourselves a $300+ positively geared property a year. I have a thread in here about that but it doesn't matter how you do it. It'll take you 10 years or so to get to yoru goal of 70k a year passive income, but dedication, hard work and sticking to your core investment principals will get you there.
Hi Lyndon,
Yes, it is beneficial to have rear access but this is not necessary. Neither is it necessary to have side access but it is desirable.
A few things needed for an annexed unit:
Car park (not car port, a car park can be on the 6m of land between the front of the house and boundary. It does not even need to be covered).
Within 20m of existing house. Either in part or in whole.
Must be to the rear of the house, or if it is at the side, it must be situated towards the back of the block. If it is in line with the front of the house, the annexed unit and house must be shown to be 'as one' from the street frontage.
The property shown in the link is great. There are no constraints or overlays on the property. That I can see. If you are serious about it I can check up with council.
Hi Brazen,
Unfortunately I cannot see the article as the page is not found. I am talking specifically about the SEQ area, not NSW. I know NSW is limited to 60sqm. In Logan City you can build them up to the size of the existing house.
As a builder, I know $800/sqm is very cheap. Buyer beware when you start seeing prices this low.
Hi saml,
We have only done LCC as it is local to us. We stumbled upon this strategy after receiving an show cause notice from council inspectors after two tenants complained to each other. We went to see the head LCC town planner along with some infrastructure people ect. There were around 4-5 people in that room with a recorded meeting. They explained to us the infil laws and said all we had to do was have annexed units and it would comply with the town plan.
We don't typically get the banks to re-value the properties since the borrowing power is increased with the positively geared income. As I said, one a year is enough to keep us busy on top of our business. I know some of our clients that we are helping with this process are looking at getting their places revalued, so they will be putting it to the test.
I saw some people in Brisbane City Council region doing this same thing. However, the issue is that they are very strict and have VERY tight definitions for households ect. i.e. a house can only have one letterbox and water connection, a household is made up of related persons, infirmed or disable persons under care only. Therefore it is very hard to do anything in the BCC without paying the nose through fees. You also have to upgrade everything to dual occupancy which is a total different application with very different building regulations.
Wit the annexed units you don't even have to apply to council as long as you do not have land where overlays and constraints trigger an application. We due the due diligence ect. on overlays/constraints and zoning as well as council infrastructure and all the other requirements pertaining to a self-assessable applications for our clients before we get into it anyway.
The typical rule of thumb is to segregate your assets and investments as much as possible. This way you don't have that 'domino' effect that can bring massive companies and massively wealthy people to their knees.
It is very sad when you see these things happen.
How are things going with this ABC company? This is probably one of the more interesting threads here. Anyone heard from Joanne or anyone else involved with ABC?
Hi, xdrew, great post.
The only point of contention that I have is in your separation of gold, silver and other commodities with property. Property is just as valuable if not more so, since not only is it finite, but it is also of USE.
The same can be said of silver and gold in electronics, but land has a use for creating food, and providing shelter. Two of the basic needs required by humans. In times of economic trouble, and runaway inflation you will see the borrowers and land owners benfiting.
This is because as inflation rises, so does the price of the property. That being said, you don't want to be forced to sell in times of inflation, since cost of living is rising and there will not be as many buyers.
Also, as inflation rises, it eats at the value of the home loan. This is because the home loan is provided in dollars (which is being destroyed).
So over time you have a property that is worth 400k. If you borrow 100% and pay interest only, based on what has happened in the past, the property will be priced at 800k in ten years.
You will have paid zero principal but yet you have 50% of your home as equity! That is the beauty of inflation, and why savers will never be able to get ahead in this economic situation, as inflation works against them in the exact same way.
The same thing can happen for gold, silver ect. They are not all too different. The trick is buying in the right time in the cycle, Typically the time to buy is when the share market has reached or is coming up to the peak of the previous cycle, or two years after a share market crash. If you buy property in that window you should be alright. I haven't studied gold/silver to figure out when to buy so you may be able to shed some light on that.
Unfortunately when the currency weakens, the property strengthens.
Property (read land) is an asset. As inflation runs off, so does the price of the property, as it holds its value.
I know that in Logan City Council you can actually rent out on separate leases if you have an 'annexed unit'. Speak to some town planners in Sydney to see if this is possible in your local government area.
What do you mean by these numbers, that you are looking at 400mm inundation max if you are flooded?
Just build the house on stumps… As long as you are 100mm above the Q20 or Q100 flood levels you will typically be fine. Call me and I can talk to my certifier about it, or click on my sig and contact me through there.
You can definately still get stuff done on 'flood affected' sites though.
