Duplex build with daughter

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I spoke with REA who valued our unit at 310 -325K if we were to sell BUT I am not selling unless in the future I sell to my daughter who owns the other unit as this build has turned out neutral to CF+ve.

Anyway
REA said we could have done a poor man's ensuite ( door opening into main bedroom BUT that would have left us with no where to hang a towel rail except over bathtub. REA said buyers don't consider this.

Also he suggested we do a timber floor including kitchen in matt finish next time. I will have to price this.

If selling I will do timber floors, if renting I will do more tiled areas. With this project we had constraints eg. rising interest rates, lending body decreasing amount we could borrow (daughter's half) and me not willing to 'help her anymore than we had' as I have tentatively planned our next 3 projects.


Extra generous belated Christmas & birthday presents...
I purchased a front loading washing machine for our daughter and a top loading washing machine for son over the last 3 weeks.

Both children have been told 'this is the end of the parents helping them' except for the usual $100 spent on birthday and $100 spent on Christmas.


Regards
Sheryn

PS
A friend's daughter is looking to buy a duplex - we have had the informal request are we interested in selling?

Answer is NO.

Rationale - Her parents could do exactly what we have done which is go halves in a duplex. :p
 
Sheryn said:
Also he suggested we do a timber floor including kitchen in matt finish next time.
If selling I will do timber floors, if renting I will do more tiled areas.
Click to expand...

Don't agree with him there Sheryn. My trusty agent told me that tiles v timber is much of a muchness when it comes to selling. I would have had to pay an extra 7k per unit to put timber in my recent duplex. :eek:

The duplex (and lawn) is looking great. Did you notice the hand in the picture on RE.com? :D
 
congrats

Your finished build looks great Sheryn. Your REA's photos were down on quality a bit though. Surely not done on a mob phone.:eek:

Re Tiles versus timber - I am a great tile fan myself, and I don't meet too many people who object to them. For selling purposes, I would do what Rockstar suggests and stick to beautiful cool smooth durable tiles, and forget about timber.
Congrats on what you have achieved Sheryn. Believe me I do have some idea what you have just done!
It looks really great.
 
Strata progress

I received the Subdivision certificate approval in the mail from the council on Friday. The next step I believe is to register the subdivision at the Lands Title office (?)

The Surveyor is off sick today so I will follow up during the week.

No tenants signed as yet, we will get the side boundary fence done this week then reassess.


Regards
Sheryn
 
Last edited:
GIDDO said:
Your finished build looks great Sheryn. Your REA's photos were down on quality a bit though. Surely not done on a mob phone.:eek: Yes

Re Tiles versus timber - I am a great tile fan myself, and I don't meet too many people who object to them. For selling purposes, I would do what Rockstar suggests and stick to beautiful cool smooth durable tiles, and forget about timber.

Next project I will be going back to tiles in all areas except bedrooms.

Congrats on what you have achieved Sheryn. Believe me I do have some idea what you have just done!

Off course - you know because you have done one yourself. We are buying another block of land so when signed for I may start another thread (although I have to do overtime at work for quite a few weeks so will lack spare time)

It looks really great.
Click to expand...

Thank you for all the kind words - onward and upward...

Regards
Sheryn
 
Finally July 2007 - May 2009...way too long from start to finish

Also just received the Occupation Certificate from Council today dated 7th May 2009.

The hold up was.....
a) plumber putting in paperwork and
b) one minor thing that builder had to fix up that the Building Inspector was not even going to write down but wanted builder to fix (small section of lead flashing needed to be fixed better)!

Handover was mid March and we are virtually mid May till complete!

7and half weeks - to be fair 5 and half weeks as we did the landscaping and had the landscaping passed on 30th April.

We have had problems with Gas - 1 bottle on our side was leaking we thought it was the bottle - found out it was the Plumbers workmanship.

Daughter has gone through 1 x 45kg bottle of gas in 4 weeks -so she will monitor usage as otherwise using $100 of gas per month!
(We were charge $212 for 2 gas bottles so presume $106 per gas bottle)


Cheers
Sheryn
 
This is a very interesting thread! My dad is building a Duplex for me ad my sister. He bought the land for 670k (it has a house on it still) and we have just began to draw plans with the architect!

Its so fun! But I have a question if you could possibly help me.

The architect has sort of dodged answering what he thinks it will cost to build the duplex. I see your building contract is 336k. Can I ask how big the duplex will be? The one we are building is 204m2 of inside living, 19m2 of alfresco, 10m2 balcony and 22m2 garage for ONE duplex, so its double those figures for the whole duplex.

Thanks so much if you reply.
 
You may get it built for as low as 1000 - 1200/sqm through a large project builder but a conventional builder will probably be at least 1500/sqm. These figures are assuming it is easy access on a flat block with fairly stable soil type.
 
mandystoj said:
The architect has sort of dodged answering what he thinks it will cost to build the duplex. I see your building contract is 336k. Can I ask how big the duplex will be? The one we are building is 204m2 of inside living, $181,560 19m2 of alfresco, (not sure) 10m2 balcony (not sure) and 22m2 garage (not sure) for ONE duplex, so its double those figures for the whole duplex.

Thanks so much if you reply.
Click to expand...

Some builders work on a certain amount per square metre - our builder does not touch houses under 150K as profit margin not there for him. $890.00 - 1500.00 per square metre gives you an approximate.

Our builder does not build architect designed plans ( he designs his own) .
 
Oh ok, well atleast I have a ball park figure now. our architect did tell us that
our alfresco (as it is actually sorta like an inside room and the house is built above it
too) will be included in per square metre.

Thanks for your help guys.
 
He is coming in a few minutes with the final plans (unless we change something again!). He has said it coud cost upto 800k with extra features, but he said most prob 500k. But we have asked him a few times how much his other duplexes cost and he didnt tell us. Not sure why? He is not an 'up market' architect he is only costing us 8k for the drawing, we got quotes fo upto 30k!.
 
Architects fees are worked on a percentage of the total finished price, so every change and every extra you include will not only increase your price, but increase his payment. There is something strange if he cant tell you what his other projects cost
 
Strata is complete, onward to next problem to solve

Surveyor notified that Strata registered into 2 lots. Only thing is we own 50% of both units and so does daughter!

Now how to get unit 1 in her name and unit 2 in our names is the question?

Costs have the potential to esculate here!

Paralegal and Senior Consultant in law firm have been discussing how to do to control costs and processes.

  • Deed of position to get over stamp duty a possibility
  • Parents transfer to daughter
  • Daughter transfer to parents

Then we are up for new mortgage fees and transfer fees.

We are exploring the possibility of daughter purchasing our unit from us [We do NOT need to sell our unit to daughter BUT this has been a possibility to help start her on her IP journey].


Anyway a busy day
Picked up 'Body corporate piece of paper from Surveyor' - Hubby
Drop off at Lawyer's - Hubby
Phone and meet with Structural Engineer - Hubby
Talk to Paralegal x 2 re how to get units in 2 names & control costs
Bank 'stimulus check' - must mention we paid tax bill last week which was MORE than we expected - so I am happy as obviously we are making money just need to learn how to minimise tax bill more!!
Refinance x 2 settled yesterday but there is some cleaning up to do like they paid off our LOC and we ended up with 5K credit so will have to transfer back to new bank.
Offset appears to be set up on wrong account - hope I can fix this by just renaming a/c's
Rang Loans officer to check daughters serviceability.

Of course I went to work early so I could snatch 30 minutes to talk to who I needed. Lunch was a walk to the banks and a banana.

Nah - I don't wish I was one of the many who sat in the courtyard talking;)

Cheers
Sheryn
 
Daughter came over tonight so I told her about the 'problem':(

We will follow up on Deed of Position & arrange a meeting with Lawyer so everyone has all the information and can decide.

Sheryn
 
We will wait and see what happens...

We are just sitting at the moment. Current Lender says daughter does not have serviceability.

MB says loan can be arranged for daughter.

Was talking to Paralegal today...
  • Deed of Partition about $1500 estimate
  • Break fees for Current Lender 3K if we refinance to another lender.

As I said we will wait and see what happens.

Daughter's immediate in line Supervisor has been transferred, daughter has previously acted in her position whilst numerous changes to workplace & staffing took place and is currently acting in Supervisor's position so fingers crossed ;) she moves up into her Supervisor's position.

On ward to next project...

Regards
Sheryn
 
Meeting with Consultant Solicitor made for Wednesday 4.30pm to discuss and arrange 'Deed of Partition'. Paralegal has made appointment for one and half hours - hope it takes 30 minutes.

It has to be done..........


Today I realised that most of the $'s I will earn this year will go in paying fees, charges & amounts to others minus our grocery and petrol bills + one meal out a week and the odd present.

The 4 day holiday next week will have to come out of savings.

  • PM
  • Maintenance
  • Solicitor
  • Surveyor
  • Insurance
  • Council - Rates & water
  • Medibank
  • Financial Institutions
  • Accountant
  • Bookkeeper
  • Subcontractors
  • ATO - PAYG
  • RTO
  • Just to name a few almost forgot OSR and stamp duty

The funny thing is Doctor, dentist, eye doctor & chemist all cost money even tho' you pay into private health cover.


Regards
Sheryn
 
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