Planland

03/09/2026

Here's the overcapitalisation test, in one question.

Your home is worth $900,000. You're about to spend $350,000 on it. Does anything in your suburb actually sell for $1.25 million?

Not the one nice outlier — the regular, comparable sale.

If the answer's no, the renovation is buying lifestyle rather than equity. That's a perfectly reasonable thing to buy. You just want to have decided it on purpose, rather than finding out at the valuation.

Find the ceiling before you set the budget.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

01/09/2026

A statistic that surprised us.

According to the ABS, roughly 45% of knock-down rebuilds in NSW put more than one dwelling back on the site. They're not just replacing a house with a bigger house — they're adding a second dwelling.

Those are owners who checked what their block could carry before they spent anything.

NSW leads the country on this, with over 77,000 dwellings approved through knock-down rebuilds in six years.

Worth a look at your own block before you renovate.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

01/09/2026

The most common approval surprise we see has nothing to do with your design. It's a line on a map.

A rear extension that needs no approval at all on the block next door can require a full DA and a heritage report on yours — purely because of a heritage conservation area boundary. Same street, same house, completely different cost and timeline.

Heritage isn't about whether your house looks old. It's about whether it's mapped.

The difference matters: a complying development certificate is determined in 20 days. A DA realistically runs to three months or more.

Check the map before you budget the timeline.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

30/08/2026

Something a lot of homeowners don't know before ruling out a rebuild.

In NSW, the principal place of residence land tax exemption can generally be extended for up to four years where the home is uninhabitable because it's being renovated or rebuilt.

And the ATO's six-year rule can let you move out, rent the place out, and still keep the main residence capital gains exemption for up to six years.

A lot of people write off a rebuild because they assume moving out will be punished. Often it isn't — but it is fact-specific, so this is general information only. Talk to your accountant before planning around it.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

30/08/2026

Buyers assess the site they're buying. Very few assess the three sites around it.
That's the one that gets people. You buy for the outlook, the sun in the kitchen, the quiet. Then the block behind sells, and it turns out the LMR provisions or the zoning let someone put a three-storey residential flat building where the fibro cottage was.
Nothing was hidden. It was all sitting in the same controls you could have checked — zone, height of buildings, floor space ratio, minimum lot size — just applied to a different lot.
Ten minutes on the adjoining lots tells you what your amenity is actually worth, and whether the thing you're paying a premium for is protected or just currently unbuilt.
Check what you're allowed to build. Then check what they are.

27/08/2026

"I'm not a developer, I just want a nicer kitchen."

Completely fair. But here's the thing — development potential is priced into your land whether you use it or not.

If your block can carry two dwellings, a buyer will pay for that capacity. That value is there when you sell, no matter what you built. Which also means the renovation you're planning may add nothing to that number, because in that buyer's plan it's coming down anyway.

You don't have to build anything. You do want to know which asset you're improving before you spend the money.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

25/08/2026

A bit of planning jargon that's actually worth knowing: "non-refusal standard".

Normally council's own controls set the numbers, and you can be refused for breaching them. A non-refusal standard means if you meet the state government's figure, council can't refuse you for breaching a tighter local one.

And if the local control is more generous, you keep that instead. You get the better of the two.

That's the real change behind the recent NSW housing reforms — not just what's permitted, but how much certainty you have going in.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

20/08/2026

Live within 800 metres of a train station or town centre? The rules on your block may have changed and nobody sent you a letter.

The Low and Mid-Rise housing reforms cover around 171 nominated centres and stations across Sydney, the Central Coast, the Lower Hunter and the Illawarra. Inside the catchment, terraces, townhouses and in some zones apartment buildings became a lot easier to get approved.

One catch: the test is walking distance on real footpaths, not straight-line on a map. Close to the boundary, that difference decides it.

Worth checking before you renovate.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

18/08/2026

Did you know this changed?

Since 1 July 2024, dual occupancies became permissible with consent in R2 zones right across NSW — not just near stations and town centres. That's most ordinary suburban blocks.

There are exclusions that matter (heritage, bushfire, flood, coastal, and some council areas sit outside it altogether), so it isn't automatic. But it's worth knowing what your block can carry before you spend six figures renovating the house that's on it.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.

14/08/2026

"We'll be here forever."

The numbers say otherwise. The median holding period for a home is roughly nine to ten years nationally, and about ten and a half in Sydney.

So here's a test worth doing before you commit to a big renovation: if you knew you had to sell in three years, would you still do this scope of work?

If the answer is no, you're renovating for lifestyle rather than value. Nothing wrong with that — you just want to know that's the call you're making.

Most renovation regret in NSW starts with the wrong first question. Here are the five things to work out — holding period, site value, overcapitalising, tax and approval pathway — before you commit a dollar.