New editor at API

Excellent news! Congratulations.

I keep on banging on about this but zoning zoning zoning. Makes a huge difference long term.

Get a call a week from someone who has purchased a property and now wants to subdivide but can't. About 50% of them go off in a huff because it can't be done and I'm the lucky ducky that tells them.

There appears to be an increase in familiarity with the financial side of investing but still a lot of unknowns about the legal side from a property perspective.

 

This is a really sound idea - and some will come forward I'm sure. Thank!

 

It amazes me how many people buy 'sites' and don't do proper checking prior to buying with council and a town planner. It literally takes 20 mins to talk to council and a town planner to get a very good idea if it can be done, challenges etc. Imho if they can't even do that, they are not ready for development.

 

Hi mate
Have a section on Regional Towns throughout Australia on a permanent basis. This is something that I felt has been under reported all along - the good and bad stuffs. I believe you will have lots to talk about.

 

hey leo - does brissy and sydney have those pre-establish zones like in victoria. in victoria, this was introduced in 2014/15, you can just isolate the ones by looking at the zones and not even bother with inspections- there is GRZ (general residential zones), GRZ1 & 2 & 3, NRZ (neighbourhood residential zone). All these zones have certain site coverages etc. and the neighbourhood residential zone is basically untouchable as you need a minimum 450sqm per dwelling if you had a 850sqm site you can't really subdivide. if you look in the diagram below basically GRZ2 light blue - u can't do anything *40% site coverage meaning if you got 600 sqm (building site - can't exceed 240sqm which means you can't do 3 dwellings unless the units are really small) and there is vegetation outlays as in can't cut trees, so really only the darker blue ones are worthwhile to inspect (grz1)

 

The instant news media has been going nuts on a demolition of a house in Brisbane's Highgate Hill. A demo that was perfectly lawful and didn't need to even go to council. It wasn't even my clients and I have done TV interview, live radio cross and prerecorded interview.

Property owners and neighbours know a little bit but still have so many people who buy and think they can do what happened next door or across the road.

I have done a few thing with journo's from your magazine in the past and they are always so refreshing. They have the time to work with you and get across the details, the poor instant guys call and say we need to do a live cross to this in 10 mins can you do it and what is your position.

 

Congrats !

You realise now that forumites will want to run and redesign the magazine for you ....

How about a nice front page article on the BOOM about to happen in Brisbane ....

Cliff

 

Hang on Cliff...not everyone is done buying

 

@melbournian Mate I am not sure to be honest. In the past I have used this site Sheet 009 - City of Sydney to help a little. But generally what I do is look at neighbourhoods I am interested to develop in and then sus out all the various zoning opportunities in that neighbourhood but the projects I look at are largely guided by the finance I have mate... sorry I dont have a better answer for you.

 

The property was not located in either:
The 1911 Building Overlay; or
The Traditional Building Character Overlay.

That means it was self-assessable development. So a private building certifier could approve demolition. They did approve demolition last year.

The block is zoned Medium Residential, so even if it was in 1911 overlay they would have had the right to move it to a different location within BCC in a traditional building character overlay.

 

Neither have we , but I think the cats out of the bag by now .

Cliff

 

Saw a big front end loader parked not that far away from the place a few hours ago,with several large dumps trucks parked near by,maybe it's for another place..

 

Is it flat yet?

 

Congrates Kieran...Read in latest newsletter as well...

didn't know you were on the forum....I know you now.... I know you from your update on RealEstate talk....keep up the good work..

 

To elaborate my above point. I always wonder why there's a permanent column on states which often showcase cities like Hobart, Darwin and Canberra when some regional towns like Wollongong, Newcastle, Geelong, Gold coast etc have grown to be bigger than them, yet are hardly mentioned in the magazine.

I respect the editor's intention to give equal coverage to all. But by doing this, it rob the chances of other cities to be highlighted. Times have changed and with states like Tasmania hardly growing, its perhaps time that the magazine give more coverage to other regional towns that are consistently growing. This will give readers a more balance view of the Australian property market, esp those from overseas. Importantly, it may also be helpful in reducing people's obsession with capital cities, something that the govt us trying to do always.

In saying this, when I talk to overseas people, Sydney, Melbourne, Perth and Brisbane seem to be the only cities they know. Hardly anyone has heard of Geelong, Townsville, Wagga Wagga etc and that's so unfortunate. API surely has a role to change that perception.

 

There is another way to look at this.....they do not need it maybe

 

just get rid of / swap a few pages of advertising, easy .. ill have a think about stories..not sure about great ones, but im sure ive got a few crap ideas

 

I'd like to see less of the stories like "I built a 2mil propert portfolio in one year" and when you look at their portfolio summary it's just a bunch of standard properties purchased at high LVRs and very little equity in them, bought by a couple on a reasonably high salary. If this is the sort of article that attracts interest, perhaps include those who've bought under market value for some reason and/or built instant equity by a good Reno or splitter.

 

I concur. If it was 2 mil equity I'd be impressed. Otherwise it's just people showing off how much debt they have, and any idiot can get into debt