Granny flat Sydney - Progress - Granny flat Approvals

We have a PPOR on a corner block in the upper north shore .

Back yard is never used except for mowing the lawn and hanging up washing . We don't hang out there on the weekend . If we're relaxing , we go to our weekender which is less than two hours away . If we had more spare time , we'd go out and do things in Sydney or go to other places , so moving forwards we don't need the back yard .

We like where we are and don't see us moving . Effectivly we use the place as a unit . I do think about growing veggies , but we don't need the whole back yard to do that , hence the decision to go with a Granny flat .

Most important thing is it will improve our cash flow in terms of serviceability and moving towards retirement a bit faster .

Finance not an issue . We have unused LOC on the PPOR in a separate facility . House is in both names so income will be split .

Did a moderate amount of research prior to contacting various granny flat builders . Only " mistake " I made was I assumed for the purpose of calculating setbacks , We had to be 3 m from the back fence ( ie the back fence in relation to house the house was orientated to our address street - PPOR rear ) . This wasn't correct.

Being on a corner block we can select whether the " rear of the Granny flat " is either the rear or the side boundary of the house .

Being able to elect the Granny flat rear boundary as the side of our PPOR means we can build closer to the PPOR rear fence and this gives us more space . This gives us much more flexibility in terms of positioning the Granny Flat .

We ended up talking to three companies and decided on Granny fat approvals , simply because of the consistently good feedback the company gets.

We let them know we wanted to go ahead on 6th Jun and paid for the first stage and they confirmed this on the 7th June.

Approval pricing

We're looking at their Stephen design . with various upgrades , including Brick , higher ceilings etc
After we went to their show room we went over the the pgh display , got a list of houses with the bricks we were interested in and have narrowed it down to two choices . One a budget one and another we prefer . Will upgrade to that if the cost isn't too much extra . Given that we're going to be living next to this for the next 20 odd years , we're happy to spend a bit more to make it look nice.

Week 1
Organised surveyor last week . He was meant to come early in the week , but was sick and came later in the week .

Cliff

 

Hi Cliff,
Best of luck to you.

Since you're on a corner block, is you're existing driveway on your primary street or secondary street?

Have you considered building an additional garage structure and having it converted to an extra bedroom and ensuite, therefore resulting in a 3bdr 2bath granny flat?

 

I prefer to use cladding over brick due to the 60sqm restriction.

You lose approx 5sqm using brick, but when you only got 60sqm to play with and optimize, the 5sqm shortfall is huge.

There are always options like scyon stria or acrylic render over blueboard if the typical cladding isn't your style.

My preference is to avoid using a rectangle design unless it is actually optimal (which it rarely is) in terms of a floor plan design. Using a non rectangular adds probably about $5k to mix, but the difference in terms of space and flow is massive.

 

Hi neK

We thought about cladding and that was one of the main decisions

We've talked to several local pm's and them and all the companies said the same thing that in our area there is a definite preference for Brick with tenants . Other areas , not the same .

Also from pour perspective , less noise leakage to our PPOR .

My wife really only became happy with doing it when we decided to convert out rumpus room into our main bedroom at the other end of the house.

Cliff

 

That's an interesting comment from the PM. I've had mine for 5+ years. I've always asked the PM for feedback each time it needs to be leased out. Not once has the feedback been related to it not being brick. (One is cladded with scyon, one is cladded with the cheaply vinyl - which looks disgusting IMO)

The common point raised has been "it's a little small".

Can't really speak much on noise insulation, but I know one of the tenants that lived in it for 3 years said the house temp was quite good that they used the a/c on average once a year, I'm guessing there might be correlation between that and noise.

But happy wife happy life, so whatever works for Mrs Cliff.

 

One of the display GF's at GFA is brick so it's possible to gauge the size from that . Would I live in it . Preferably not but having the back yard is something some people prefer to a slightly bigger unit .

Cliff

 

I think the pm was pulling ya leg with the brick vs weatherboard statement.

Only thing ive ever been told is about the internal

 

Brick does look much better though.
Its not that much extra to get the nice materials which make it look good unlike colorbond or vinyl cladding

 

From recollection - upper north shore is $$$$? Then brick is probably best and will tie in with most of the dwellings in the area I presume.

Do you have room to put a nice verandah/alfresco off the living area to make it feel more spacious? I've built a lot of 70sqm places in Perth and a good indoor/outdoor flow and undercover area outside is always very well received.

 

Yeah your statement is true for the owners own feel good satisfaction or from a re sale point of view. The renter aint going to care diddly squat. Only care about the internal

 

Got the survey back yesterday with suggested location and standard plans .

Cliff

 

I would argue that the landscaping (whether theres outdoor decking/paving) is worth more to renters than whether it is brick or weatherboard

 

We will be providing a nice courtyard / back yard .

Update .. reviewed the survey over weekend and paid for stage two which is the design segment on Monday ( 25/6 ) . We're not going with a standard design so have booked an appointment to work that out . We're only free on Saturdays . Next Saturday they were booked up so it's booked for the Saturday after that .

Cliff

 

That’s not what we’ve been told by local pm’ s . They’ ve specifically said that local renters prefer brick . I can’t think of one local house that isn’t brick .

Re resale . Chances are that people will be put off by a granny flat . Even with a granny flat , the returns are unlikely to to attract a pure investor .

Only people who would value it would be someone in our situation , downsizers who want to be in that location with some income .

Most properties similar to ours are bulldozed and new houses built .

We paid 1.15 late 2013 . Last year the house on opposite corner sold for 2.55 and they put a bulldozer through it . At the moment we’d be lucky to get 2.2 and I don’t think the GF would add to that and it’s more to demolish .....

Cliff

 

Yep , we’ve looked at that . We already have some CGT liability as we rented the house out before we moved in , but we may well be here permanently , so that becomes someone else’s problem ..

From what I’ve seen there’s no clear guidance about the CGT , and no ones asked for a specific ruling given the impact that could have on “ Aussie Battlers renting out their back yard to get by “ . Also it would completely spook the whole sector , which has the potential to provide affordable rentals .

Correct me if I’m wrong .

I’d wonder if the government would step in and make a specific rule to make an exemption for granny flats on PPOR’s .

At this stage it’s all about cash flow .

Cliff

 

I think it is pretty clear on the CGT. If you rent part of your property out it will be subject to CGT by apportionment and not fully exempt. You will have to do some extra apportioning due to renting the property out prior.

There are plenty of private rulings on granny flat issues.

 

Ok , so now all the design work etc is finished .

This took longer than we were planing , but that was totally due to us . We were away on holidays in the middle of the design process for a start . We had fairly specific requirements in terms of where we wanted it , wanting to keep one specific tree , wanting to maintain a back yard courtyard for our existing house while creating a reasonable back yard for the granny flat , while maintaining separation of living areas etc . There was only one practical orientation of the rooms that worked and then the rooms had to be worked into that general layout so they were usable

Of course at that stage we changed our minds ( after further advice ) and decided to go with cladding as opposed to brick and one we got the front elevation we decided to tinker with that to improve the street appeal ... etc etc . We have a " color consultant " ( more like an over all design consultant ) we use who's given us advice on which profile hardiplank to use and an external color scheme to use . It just a pity he drives us stark raving bonkers when ever we see him and we've promised our selves we have to find someone else for the next time .

But we're there . Had an on site with the guy who will be in charge of the site , in terms of access , which bits of fence to remove and where to store stuff on delivery . Said it should be finished prior to Christmas . Around 12 weeks once it starts .

Notifications set out to neighbors and just a matter of waiting until the Certifier says it can start .

Cliff