1. Strategy and planning
Before you go on a search site for development, it is important to do some homework. As we have seen, you first need to decide in which real estate development market you want to try your hand. This is done so that you start looking for the right type of site. You need to know the style of development you want to try, the size of the land you need and in most cases the general location of your proposed purchase and, most importantly, what criteria will determine the market value. These things should make a plan for your strategy and plan. If you do not do this, you will impede the process of obtaining land.
2. Attributes of location and area - convenience
People often ask me how I find a great development site. The answer to this very common question lies in the area itself. Instead of looking for a site to develop, then, seeing whether it will work for me, as indicated above, I first define the market that I would like to develop, and then the general area in which I want to develop.
People are usually willing to buy expensive property in privileged regions of the highest quality, both in favorable and unfavorable times. The fact is that properties in first-class suburbs constantly cause higher prices, while properties in second-class areas decreased in bad times. Building property in expensive areas is easier because of the best profit prospects in these places.
The rest is a game with numbers, but back to what we need to consider when choosing our area. There are a number of variables to consider. Most people are under the wrong impression that a development site has different selection criteria than investment property criteria. This is simply not true. Yes, this is true, there are many criteria for researching development sites, but keep in mind that in most cases the buyer is either an investor or a home owner, and their criteria will be the same. Just as real estate investors and homeowners are looking for proper positioning and local convenience, capital growth and rental returns, you, the developer, must also keep this goal in mind and find the sites that your end users will buy. Therefore, taking into account the points we just mentioned when it comes to choosing a property to buy, ask yourself the following questions.
I call them "5km" of questions.
• Is the train station within 5 km from here?
• Is there the nearest bus or tram stop at 5 km?
• Is the local school 5 km from here?
• Is the local mall within 5 km from here?
• Are any of the above planned in the near future 5 km from here?
If you answered “yes” to three or more of them, then you have found a great place. If, however, you answered # up to more than three, then it's time to move on and look for another place.
3. How to evaluate a promising real estate site
It is appropriate to follow the change of suburbs when choosing your site for your development. For example, in poorly maintained suburbs, it is often possible to identify cases of young people moving to these places in order to buy and repair attractive older residences and rejuvenate the area.
Traders are usually tied to these localities, using cafes, boutique shops and cafes in the city center to provide groceries for the newly settled ones. Carefully review property prices to mark the suburbs, where you are sure that there is a chance of underestimation and are ready for change. In most cases, these properties are adjacent to an exclusive suburb, where young buyers were evaluated.
4. Making a profit when buying
Finding the perfect piece of land can take weeks or even a couple of months. The right way to make sure that you get the perfect land that offers the highest payoff is to consider the cost of the sites as part of the final cost of your project at the time of sale. To get the maximum profit from your property, you must make sure that the value of the land or land does not exceed 25% to 30% of the final cost of the project. Therefore, if your target value of your property is $ 1 million, the value of your plot should not exceed $ 250,000 to $ 300,000.
You should always avoid emotions and buy only real estate based on its possibilities. The site must pass rigorous qualification tests, which include location and planning provisions, the suitability of the enterprise and the attractiveness of its location.
5. Local Council
You should always look for an area with active advice. Activities in the area can be measured by the number of new living spaces, so go through and look around. Open your eyes to see what is happening in the particular area you are looking at. Do you see new developments? Another way to find out if the Council is active is to visit the Council’s website and see how many applications for new residential premises have been submitted, and more importantly, how many of them have been approved or returned. If you find that the board has a high interest rate - say, 50% - and most of the refunds are subsequently canceled at VCAT, this usually means that the advice is against development, and it may be difficult for you to get planning permission. It may be wise to move to another area or council. On the other hand, if you find that more than 70% of the applications were approved by the board, this suggests that the board will develop the project, and planning permission is likely to be granted if it meets all regulatory requirements. Council websites will also show you where in any area of local government the council approves these new developments. There may be plans for new infrastructure and amenities in the area to accommodate housing growth. The number of new housing approvals also tells you how much the demand is for new accommodations in the area. This is a good indicator of how further growth and profit will continue there.
6. How to find information about local council plans
All tips have a master plan, and as a developer you need to find, understand, and challenge them. To find such a plan a few years ago, before the age of IT was quite complex and required you to sift files at the local council offices. This was time consuming, but now with the benefit of the Internet it is much easier to achieve. Currently, the council website will tell you everything you need to evaluate plans for a local area. However, I would suggest that you study the information that you will find deeper, since the by-laws and planning rules are in a state of constant change. Feel free to call or call the council office to make sure that you find it on your site still. Some tips regularly update their websites, and some do not. Recently, I was caught with a list of heritage on a property that was not mentioned on the local council website. Most of the time, however, you should find everything you need on your site.
7. What should you look for in the master plan?
The first thing to look for according to the master plan is a change in infrastructure and zoning. See where new railway stations will be built or new roads are planned. These things will give you an idea of where the new homes will be. See where the industrial zones are; where the council offers to build a new shopping center; if there is a new school, zonal or planned. Even look at the parkland. This information will tell you where you should search for your new development site and where you should not. Remember that it is very important to check with the board everything that you are not sure about. A visit or phone call can save you from losing thousands of dollars.
8. Streetscape - now we have chosen our area to find our street.
When I talk about the street landscape, I mean the whole street and the surrounding streets. Streetscape is very important for understanding the psychology of current homeowners or perhaps tenants who, if you buy here, will become your temporary neighbors and / or possible objects of your project. Spend time exploring the streets.
Looking at the houses and the street, you will find out if you have problems with "busy" neighbors, or if they do not even know that you have applied for permission. Probably one of the most significant checks you will be doing on people in the area. When you study the area and the movements of the people who live there, make sure that you do this at least a few days, if not a week later. Drive through the area at different times of the day, on different days, and preferably on weekends, to see what is happening. Are housewives going to chat? People talking on the street? Perhaps there is a Sunday barbecue, which everyone uses. Are well maintained houses with lawns in excellent condition? Or is this a place where you would feel less secure? If this is the last, then most likely the region has a large number of tenants, and, quite likely, the council and owners will welcome changes. If, however, there are regular Sunday barbecues, meetings with obscene clubs and yards that look neat and mostly clean, then you will most likely encounter the object of your project.
Next - search! Yes, you read correctly - see! Everyone tends to look down and around, but not many people are looking for. See how the roofline forms a cityscape. Crawling up and down the street - look at the roof lines of all the houses on the street, and you will notice that in most suburban areas they all have the same visibility. This means that it works in a straight line. Most people do not understand that in most cases the councils will base their decision on whether to allow the creation of double storage (DS) or one-story (SS) on this line. In this line, you will find out whether a building in a two-story building will be overlooked or whether it will fit perfectly into the character of the existing neighborhood.
9. Previous object
One of the most common mistakes made by developers for the first time is the use of the theory of priorities. For Say, there is another property on the street in which you hope to grow, which was given permission to develop, which by its nature is similar to what you want to build. This prompts you to base your application on the same lines. But while it is always important to look at what others have done, and then do what they are, this is not always the case.
What is important to you if you need to do something differently. You need to look at any conditions on the part of the property that was divided. Conditions may exist for a name such as a covenant. It may not even be possible to divide the land. You should also investigate DDO (Council Design Add-ons) before committing a unit. It can be different and have a condition, such as vegetation or other forms of overlay, which can limit or even prevent division. It is important to consider each property on its own, as it can be misleading.
10. Line of sight
While the line of sight for the cityscape carries a lot of weight with advice, you need to be careful about the topography of this area. Suppose, let's say, we have a 500-meter street with a slope of 5 meters from one end to the other. At the lower end of the street there is a three-story building (9 meters high), and the proposed development site is located at the other end of the street, at the upper end. Since you want to build a similar building, you make a decision based on the priority of & # 39; one, that is, there is already one in the street, and you believe that the council should recognize this. This is not true!
First look up. Looking at the line of sight from your site, and then down the street, you will see that the roof lines largely have a steady flow, as the street falls, the properties become higher, and as the streets grow, the properties become lower. This means that if you placed a three-story townhouse (9 meters) on your site, it would be 5 meters higher than at the lower end of the street, and it would look very inappropriate.
Advice, in most cases, will overcome the precedent and reduce your home by 5 meters to ensure the consistency of the horizon. This rule of thumb for the Council maintains the height for each dwelling at a constant level across blocks.
11. The nature of the neighborhood
We touched it before. We mentioned that a street character consists of several things; neighbors, houses, roads, signs, trees - and all this will tell you how and what type of housing will fit the character of your street.
Old houses in Edward with tree-lined streets usually attract the landlord, not the investor, with an assessment of the area, which in 99% of cases will be very loud against any new development proposal in the area. They want to preserve their integrity. So, if you think you can build a state-of-the-art house on an Edwardian tree-lined street, think again. You could go and burn your money, since you will find yourself in VCAT with most, if not all, neighbors and the Council against you.
Remember that the character of the street not only shows you what type of house you need to build, but also who you will be dealing with. If, for example, you have a street where there are broken cars and scrap metal in the neighbors. driveways and on their lawns, and if the houses are not well-groomed, it is very likely that this is an area with a high rental component, and illegally you will get many objections from your neighbors. You will find these homes most likely owned by investors who will welcome the new proposal as positive for the area of both net worth and cash value.
The council will also accept this view. The likelihood of new housing in low-income areas that increase rental prices is inevitable, and the quality of housing and houses will improve. This is probably in terms of investment and development, a great place to buy real estate, develop and retain until the rest of the area catches up. I saw properties in areas like this double price, very quickly, as soon as the developers start building. However, on the downside it may take many years for this to happen.
