NSW Newcastle 2020

I have been keeping check of Newcastle lately, I've got a lot of work up there.

Charlestown and surrounds are a beautiful area, well priced, central to most and had Alot of infrastructure coming in.

Found this property yesterday, will need bit of touch up but would love to build 2 town houses on it. Amazing views.

Any thoughts on Charlestown and the below?
38 Kalora Crescent Charlestown

 

Too much of a slope on that mate, not on the high side of the street either so storm water draining also a problem. Would require a hell of a lot of diffing, cutting and retaining walls. A lot better options for a duplex site in my opinion, maybe look for a corner block on something flat.

The inner city market is really moving fast at the moment. Folks seems to be spending more disposable income on creating a lifestyle at home now that we can't travel for the foreseeable future. Working from home also a big reason to make your property look prettier if you're spending more time living in it -- rather than the office.

Some interesting trends happening in our regions post COVID19

'Insatiable growth' vanishes in big cities as workers move away


High end well-rennovated contemporary and old character city homes are now trading from $2m and up

See below

Sold 18 Smith Street, Hamilton South NSW 2303 on 10 Oct 2020 - 2016485361 | Domain

Sold 8 Bar Beach Avenue, Bar Beach NSW 2300 on 14 Oct 2020 - 2016537104 | Domain

Sold 178 Lawson Street, Hamilton South NSW 2303 on 10 Oct 2020 - 2016494518 | Domain

Sold 53 Light Street, Bar Beach NSW 2300 on 12 Oct 2020 - 2016450653 | Domain

 

Did I hear right that Smith St went for about 2.2m? Very tidy house, but wow!

 

I'm very curious to see what this one goes for:
18 Alexander Street, Hamilton South NSW 2303 | Domain

Ticks a lot of the boxes for what I am after (although 1 bedroom short). Pity I am not in a position to have a punt on it at the moment!

Cheers,
Inertia.

 

Yes that Alexander Street Hamilton home is a great property just screaming out for a modern interior renovation.... looks like the guide is around $1.6m-ish

It wouldn't take much to bring that up to something worth $2.2-2.5m.... it has been very well maintained.

The Smith Street home at $2.2m was somewhat of a surprise. Dressed up well, but the fit out was fairly basic when I inspected it. The layout was also a hit of a mess with the masterbed upstairs in the loft, and the x3 kids bedrooms right at front door. Not the best security for little kids. Normally you want the master near kids beds, not at the other end of the house.

The whole Byron Bay 'look' with that Smith Street home ie white on white on white and cream is well past its used by date in my humble opinion @inertia

 

Alexander Street is one of the best homes I’ve been through in a while, sadly I didn’t get the business on that one. I reckon it will go past $1.8m in this market, it’s ticks all the boxes with what buyers are wanting at the moment;
single level, Large block( 680sqm2), double width garage, wide driveway. North facing backyard and a pool. Only thing it’s missing is an en-suite. If it was on the Eastern side of Stewart Ave it would easily be mid $2’s.

 

Thanks for the feedback. I still think Charlestown is a booming suburb with huge opportunity in it.

Hahaha. $2 million bit out of price range at the moment. For those kind of dollars I'm more of an acreage man.

 

The fact that it's on the non heritage conservation side of Stewart Avenue is a bonus in my opinion Tom.

A lot of people look past this one but a lot easier to get Council on side with DA approvals and don't have to slit your wrist because of out dated heritage restrictions and colour schemes LOL.

Very difficult for an architect and client to work with conservation area restrictions.

Also quite limited to what you can do if you want to create value and create something quite contemporary and modern between old and new like the Melbourne property below which is a shame for Newcastle architecture I think.

Neighbours would shoot down a rear addition like this in an instant in the Hamilton South conservation area.

https://www.kleevhomes.com.au/northcote

 

We did a major renovation in the Heritage zone, we retained the front two bedrooms and rebuilt the rest of the house.

The biggest problem we found with the heritage restraints was getting the wrong advice to begin with, once we found the right architect we didn’t have any issues getting the approval for what we wanted.

Council was pushing for the clear separation between old and new that your talking about, they wanted the skillion roof, single garage plus a couple of other items that we didn’t want.

I grew up in the conservation zone and deliberately bought back into the area as I love the fact that the majority of the homes are all still intact and haven’t knocked down.
I’m not a fan of Merewether purely for the fact that there isn’t any uniformity with the homes and you don’t know what’s around the corner with the next knock down rebuild.

That part of Alexander Street is still in the conservation zone, the zoning changes on the western side of Gordon Avenue.

Council seems to be a lot more lenient lately with some of the builds that are popping up, I’m starting to see a lot more modern wings off the back of homes. I can appreciate this type of architecture by retaining the old and new but personally I prefer the continuation of the old dwelling rather than the clear separation of old and new.

 

Amazing! this is the Hamilton I know and love.

 

You are right Tom. It is indeed on the conservation zone side of Gordon Ave my bad!

I guess the problem with the current NCC heritage restrictions is that it is somewhat difficult to make the property larger and more liveable
for growing families ie 4/5 bedrooms without going UP and still meeting the required green space ratio at the rear on a typical 500-600 sqm lot. Your own option would be to sell up and move.

In my humble opinion, property owners should be free to build what they like to make the most use of their land, within reason to planning rules and floor space ratios of course and still include modern designs for the area.

... especially now that land in the city is very expensive on a per sqm basis and we are all spending more time than ever at home post COVID.

The only way is UP baby

 

Nice work

 

the problem with that is losing the look and feel of the suburb that makes it attractive in the first place. It is a difficult balance, and I'm not sure what the answer is, but it does seem easier to knock down a Californian bungalow and build a kit home than to actually make the older house more livable.

My house was horribly used and abused by an owner/builder doing his own reno in the 90s, and would probably be better off raised to the earth. Second best option would be to completely undo the renovation and start again. Unfortunately my wife is not supportive of either of those, so I will do a cosmetic reno to cover up the 15+ years as a rental, and look to move on.

Cheers,
Inertia.

 

Hi Inertia,

The architectural and planning solution is to keep the old facade and character of the bungalow and cut the rear of the dwelling at a certain point and go up on a modern rear addition via a slab on ground or footings to increase the dwelling floor space and density.

I.E. "the mullet house" Business at the front, Modern at the back which you see a lot of in inner Melbourne similar to The Block Elsternwick.

See Islington example which sold earlier this year.
https://www.realestate.com.au/sold/property-house-nsw-islington-134002938

Melbourne examples
Mullet Homes in Melbourne That Are Modern in the Back

Elsterwick houses
The Block 2017: We review the five houses for sale in Regent Street, Elsternwick

 

yeah, I'm not a massive fan of the mullet. I prefer sympathetic/integrated renovation.

 

Hi guys. I have really enjoyed reading all your contributions throughout this Newy thread and the old ones also. Just wondering what the general consensus on Maryville is ? Looking at other recent sales for unrenovated houses in the suburb these properties below look a little overpriced ? Thoughts ?

4 William Street, Maryville NSW 2293 | Domain

26 Estell Street, Maryville NSW 2293 | Domain

 

I really like Maryville, not a lot has transacted over the last few months, Mayfield has been stealing the spotlight. Once you start wanting off street parking and a block size of around 400sqm2 + your buy in price is pretty similar to Hamilton.

4 William Street is 100% overs, not a great spot surrounded by industrial, no off street parking.

26 Estell Street is fairly reasonably priced, Estell Street is my favourite street in Maryville and has had the highest sale for the suburb which was around $1.6m, this could end up in the high $700’s in the current market having the off street parking.

 

You're right there is plenty of land. Land is not scarce. Look at Gillo Heights to Heddon Greta.

Consider this however. There is an open cut coal mine behind Ashtonfield and significant undermining and quarry activity from Ashtonfield bush dotted back to Thornton and across to Sugarloaf.

I'm not saying that can't be residential land, I mean look at the old Pasminco site its now houses. I'm just saying, I'd wonder out aloud how much land isn't underminded.

 

Keep in mind the whole of Newcastle is undermined. Place is a honeycomb.

Won't stop them in my opinion. Just end up with foundational problems and highly reactive soils. Look at the land releases near Ipswich. Then people will complain that no one told them.

I remember chatting to someone regarding the Pasminco site. They said something along the lines of "well as an out of towner you don't know the history so yeh I'd be annoyed if I found lead contamination".

I then jumped on the land release website to show them the first page was a picture of a dirty big lead smelter under the history tab.

 

Goodness @tomlemke !

84 Estell Street Maryville sold for $1.6m in July 19 -- big coin for 340 sqm block on a per sqm basis

@inertia Ive attached a few picks of my "Mullet" project which will be finished on the market next year. Spared no expense so it won't be your typical inner-city Newy house

We've added a few slabs of super white dolomite stone for the bathroom/kitchen/laundry benches and splashbacks to add a little extra...

27 Regent Street, Paddington NSW 2021 | Domain

We've tried to take some cues from William Smart which is one of my favourite architects and firms. You can see some his work in this Paddington home above which is an absolute old meshed with contemporary masterpiece. I think the price of that home is about $7.5m which one expensive Mullet.