Hi all
I looked at a house today on a ~640 sqm block. At the moment it has a house set quite forward and within about 2m of one boundary on the long narrow block. There's a large garage behind. The block slopes up from the street.
I looked at with the thought that a) it was cheap for the area (maybe 15% below market) b) long narrow block with good access to the rear so c) good possibility to add a granny flat & get about 9% return doing rough, pretty conservative numbers.
Anyway.
As it happens, the reason it's cheap is that there's an issue with the retaining wall on the left side of the block. An engineer has inspected & though it's not an official report (??) his recommendation is that the wall would need to be replaced & the garage should be demolished.
The retaining wall runs from nothing at the front to about 1.2m 31m back, then about 12m across. Anyone have any idea how much it would likely be to re-do that much retaining wall? Much of it doesn't have great access as it runs down the side of the existing house.
Also, from reading the SEPP legislation I think the block would be OK for a granny - it would be set approx 1.2m above the main house, any thoughts on that appreciated.
It was passed in at auction cos of the issues & the price has dropped, may be able to get them down a bit more, though there were quite a few people there today.
This all may be moot as I'm waiting on my house valuation which will determine whether or not I'd have the cash to deal with the issue but curious about people's views.
I looked at a house today on a ~640 sqm block. At the moment it has a house set quite forward and within about 2m of one boundary on the long narrow block. There's a large garage behind. The block slopes up from the street.
I looked at with the thought that a) it was cheap for the area (maybe 15% below market) b) long narrow block with good access to the rear so c) good possibility to add a granny flat & get about 9% return doing rough, pretty conservative numbers.
Anyway.
As it happens, the reason it's cheap is that there's an issue with the retaining wall on the left side of the block. An engineer has inspected & though it's not an official report (??) his recommendation is that the wall would need to be replaced & the garage should be demolished.
The retaining wall runs from nothing at the front to about 1.2m 31m back, then about 12m across. Anyone have any idea how much it would likely be to re-do that much retaining wall? Much of it doesn't have great access as it runs down the side of the existing house.
Also, from reading the SEPP legislation I think the block would be OK for a granny - it would be set approx 1.2m above the main house, any thoughts on that appreciated.
It was passed in at auction cos of the issues & the price has dropped, may be able to get them down a bit more, though there were quite a few people there today.
This all may be moot as I'm waiting on my house valuation which will determine whether or not I'd have the cash to deal with the issue but curious about people's views.