Practical thinking on custom homes, knockdown rebuilds and residential developments across Melbourne's south east.
Newest first · 16 articles
Victoria requires every new home to reach a minimum 7-star NatHERS rating before a registered building surveyor will issue a building permit.
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Buy a block in Officer and the title tends to arrive with reading attached. A registered covenant sits over the land.
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Owners in the Monash corridor rarely move. They already hold the school zone and the short run to Clayton or the Business Park, so when the house stops suiting the family, the house is what changes.
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Building a custom home in Old Berwick works differently from building on a greenfield lot fifteen minutes down the road.
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A realistic timeline for a custom home, the pre-construction and construction phases, what stretches a build and why custom takes longer than a project home.
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Fixed-price or cost-plus? What each contract structure means, where the pricing risk sits and the protections every Victorian building contract must include.
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The full custom home build sequence in Victoria, from design, engineering and permits through the base, frame, lock-up, fixing and completion stages to handover.
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What site classification means on a sloping block: the AS 2870 soil classes, why south-east Melbourne clay lands on Class M or H and the footings that answer it.
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Why project-home builders quote sloping blocks out or turn them away, how provisional sums pass the risk to you and what a custom builder does differently.
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The two ways to build on a slope, cut-and-fill and split-level, what each does to site works and retaining, and how to tell which suits your block.
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Not every block in the south-east corridor suits a knockdown rebuild. Which Berwick, Officer, Clyde North and Pakenham blocks do, and why.
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Renovate the house you have or start again? An honest framework for deciding, and the signs that tell you which one your block is asking for.
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The demolition, disconnections and permits that come before a knockdown rebuild, in the order they actually happen and why the sequence matters.
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Two dwellings or three? What separates a dual occupancy from a townhouse development in Victoria, which one your block will carry, and how to decide between them.
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What decides whether a Monash block can carry two dwellings: the zone over your land, the site area each dwelling needs, the setbacks you hold and how much you can cover.
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Which blocks qualify, what your zone allows, what it costs to build, and the questions that separate a good dual occupancy builder from a costly one.
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