Building a Minor Dwellings in South Auckland - plus dealing with council

[Bluekiwi]

I have 2 minor dwellings to build in South Auckland and I can start any time.
But both are a little tricky due to Manukau Water "Red Zone" and the other one needing bridging or moving of an existing storm water man hole.

So in addition to getting a good cheap minor dwelling built, also need to use a company that has someone who knows his council regulations stuff and can work with council and knows them and the inside running.
Try and do it yourself and you might as well take a gun to your head.

[AMR]

Why not wait for the PAUP and go for a full subdivision with larger buildings?

For minor dwellings I've used Duncan Lucas (MRL surveyors) in the past, got me out of a hairy situation with undersized stormwater pipes.

Re Bridging - for timber piles it's simply engineering to relocate the piles around the pipe. The building company can do that. For concrete pad yes bridging will be needed.

[Bluekiwi]

Mixed Housing zone with 400m2 minimum site size not good enough for Full Subdivision.
Plus going the whole hog causes huge costs and upgrades and turns into nightmares.

Spending 200k? all up, on a 3 bedroom 59m2 minor dwelling, adding $450 per week rent, is better yield.

Were you in the Property Mag AMR, is that Jimmy ?

[webhostienz]

im just doing it at the moment...but in west auckland. You are right about the frustration that council causes. papers are currently sitting with council and hoping to have them go through in the next week fingers crossed.

You can give it out to a turnkey manager like fuzo but costs are likely to be higher... or you can contract trades and engineers yourself and get it done..this can be frustrating .

[Shane D]

BK,

Smart move on the minor dwelling builds. I am also a firm believer that at this stage of the property cycle (near top) you should be putting the majority of your resources into strengthening the cashflow of your current portfolio. So when the market eventually turns and bank managers are reviewing their loan portfolios and looking to weed out risk, you will NOT be on their radars.

I just completed a self contained sleep-out build with Versatile buildings, and it went very smooth. I was very impressed with the knowledge of council bureaucracy and how to work with them. I guess after doing so many they have it down pat. Although they are probably not the cheapest guys on the market.

Even if you just talk to a guy called Justin in the Manukau office you will get heaps of advice. He even put me on to a few tradies for another minor dwelling I just built myself in Mangere East.

Shane

[Davo36]

BK, I can also recommend Duncan Lucas, he did the unit title subdivision for me at Papakura.

Shane, sounds like you're doing quite a bit just now.

[AMR]

Mixed Housing zone with 400m2 minimum site size not good enough for Full Subdivision.
Plus going the whole hog causes huge costs and upgrades and turns into nightmares.

Spending 200k? all up, on a 3 bedroom 59m2 minor dwelling, adding $450 per week rent, is better yield.

Were you in the Property Mag AMR, is that Jimmy ?

BK yes that was me in the mag. We haven't caught up for a while now

The PAUP minimums are likely to go up I think, council is shifting towards an urban planning approach rather than a fairly prescriptive density blanket.

http://www.nzherald.co.nz/nz/news/article.cfm?c_id=1&objectid=11487267

The last minor that I did, I did the services in such a way that a full subdivision is possible later on. Also there's no reason why you can't have a 60 sqm minor dwelling attached to a 20 sqm sleepout and then subdivide the whole lot out later, so the minor dwelling is only the first stage. Subdividing really pushes the equity up (although the extra cost will not add to yield in any way)

That whole urban planning thing could blow up on some investors though, in some ways it's replacing a certainty with reviews by the urban planning team which could drag on a bit.

[Bluekiwi]

Yeah that was a long time ago we met aye Jimmy.
Nice to see you evolving your plans as you go along to meet your goals.
Revising your strategy to achieve what you want is very important.

For me, I am happy I have cut my rentals down from 13 to 8, and I will now keep all of those for ever and pass on to my children.
I reduce my portfolio as I thought long and hard about what I wanted to achieve, and that was just enough to be able to quit my office job and do property as a lifestyle.
I had leveraged myself so high at the time that the bank wouldn't lend me money to develop or do property trading.

So I sold 5 houses over several years to provide funds for trading, and I have been able to make money doing that.

Now I am going to keep my 8 properties forever.
I thought I might as well maximise yield and not even consider capital growth as it doesn't really matter now, I just want maximum rents.
That could involve additions, garages, minor dwellings, making one dwelling into 2 under the unitary plan.

I don't even have to comply with council if I don't want to.
As I am not selling, I am just getting better rents.

One concept is where you have 2 bathrooms in a house.
And most of my houses are 5 plus bedrooms.
You can put in a 3k removable kitchen, tenants can maybe sublet that part of the house a separate flat.

[Janshouse]

I can also recommend Duncan Lucas they also got me out of a sticky situation with the council. Highly recommend

On another note you'd think the council would be better an encouraging investment instead of hindering it. Good luck!

[Davo36]

On another note you'd think the council would be better an encouraging investment instead of hindering it. Good luck!

Yep, you'd think so, but read some of the other threads on here regarding the council...

[elguapo]

On another note you'd think the council would be better an encouraging investment instead of hindering it. Good luck!

I don't think you understand how councils work....

[Wayne]

Does anyone - even the council - understand?

[webhostienz]

I can confirm that council themselves do not understand their own rules and district plan requirements. Thats why you have to consult with good private consulting engineers and planners. And they are not cheap!

[Wayne]

Ones that are willing to and can argue the toss - and win.

[Bluekiwi]

I am proceeding with Keith Hay Homes.

Cons -

Going to be more expensive and I cant quantify how much, but it could be 30k to 50k my guess.
They have a 7 to 8 month lead time.

Pros -

They do hundreds and hundreds of minor dwellings with council and know and ring the key people they need to ring.
The council people who deal with know that KHH know what they are doing and both parties work incredibly well with each other.
KHH pretty much do the resource consent and the building.
Fixed price contract.
I don't have to do anything except sign bits of paper.
Safety of working with a company that can be trusted.