What kind of land size allow building 2, 3 or 4 properties on 1 land?

Visit the www.realestate.com.au website and enter your suburb in the search bar. Select "sold" and search the properties that were recently sold.

Go through the properties sold in the last 6 months and figure out the ideal unit size that brings a good sales price for a 2-bedroom, 3-bedroom, and 4-bedroom dwelling in your market.

When deciding on the perfect size for new dwellings, also consider factors like stair space (approximately 4.5 square meters per floor) and the potential need for adjustments based on council feedback.

If you find two ideal dwelling sizes for a specific type, for example, a 3-bedroom with optimal value at both 100sqm and 140sqm, record that information. You may need to use it to adjust your development strategy after the council provides feedback on your design proposal.

Once you've determined the optimal size for the dwellings, proceed to the next step.

Step 2 - Figure out how much space you can build on your site.

How? By comparing with the neighbors around your selected site.

Firstly, open Google Maps using this link - map.google.com

Find a nearby neighbour who has developed their site similar to your vision.

For example, if you plan to develop a site size roughly 900 sqm and keeping the existing house, you want to find a neighbour who has done similar on their site.

In this example, we found a 1030sqm developed site that has built new dwellings to the rear.

You will measure the following:

• On the ground floor, the percentage of the building compared to the site size.

• On the first floor, the percentage of the building compared to the site size.
  Be mindful to exclude the eaves in the measuring.

In this example, the neighbour has:

• 1030sqm site area

• 500 sqm built on the ground floor, or roughly 48% of the site area.

• 135 sqm built on the first floor, or roughly 13.5% of the site area.

Working backwards, if you're keeping the existing house, the building area you can assume to build will be roughly:

• 900sqm (site area) × 48% ground floor coverage = 432sqm building area.

• 900sqm (site area) × 13.5% first floor coverage = 122sqm building area.

If your old house is 140 square meters inclusive of car parking spaces, you can assume you will get roughly 414 square meters of new house area on your site.

That's roughly two small-sized four bedroom dwellings.

Early Indication Only

This process is for you to get an early indication, enabling you to carry out focused due diligence on sites suitable to your development strategy. Details such as trees, authorities assets, traffic, etc. is not considered at this stage. Engage an architect before you take any action.

More information on how to compare with neighbours: 3 steps to reduce the Town Planning Permit risk before you buy the site

The neighbourhood

Comparing the neighbours is very important because it heavily determines what you can do on your site.

Here's another example: if you're working on site number 142 in this example, the site numbers 144 and 146 indicate you can build roughly 70% on the ground floor and 55% on the 1F. Based on experience, we know there's a potential for building the 2F.

The Site No. 142 is 620 sq. m in size. You should be able to build:

• 620sqm (site area) × 70% ground floor coverage = 434sqm building area.

• 620sqm (site area) × 55% first floor coverage = 340sqm building area.

• 620sqm (site area) × assuming 35% second floor coverage = 215sqm building area.

You may assume you can build a total of 989 sqm on this site. That's 6-7 numbers of 3-bedroom dwellings on this site with a site area of only 620 sqm.

Early Indication Only

This process is for you to get an early indication, enabling you to carry out focused due diligence on sites suitable to your development strategy. Details such as trees, authorities assets, traffic, etc. is not considered at this stage.