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Archicentre’s search to find
a suitable property that had huge potential for a large scale
renovation in a Sydney suburb that would provide a strong
capital growth began in December 2003.
The aim was to purchase a run-down property
on a good sized block of land with the potential to be substantially
redeveloped into a larger, contemporary, environmentally sustainable
family home.
To begin the process, Archicentre compiled
a list of all the attributes we were looking for in our perfect
site and then narrowed these down into the “must have’s”
and the “would like’s”. This included such
things as land size, orientation, age and size of the property,
what it was made out of and special site features such as
views. This list provided an easy guide to sort out quickly
which properties would be suitable and worth taking the time
to investigate into further and those which would not.
To find the right property in the right
area, Archicentre did some research into different areas of
Sydney using tools such as the “Home Price Guides”
to establish the median selling price of properties in particular
areas and their past growth/decline patterns.
Archicentre then went through a number
of channels to find the Mosman property, such as browsing
internet property sites such as domain.com.au, contacting
local agents and asking them to advise of any current or future
listings that may be of interest and scouring local and metropolitan
papers.
Once found, Archicentre conducted a thorough
pre-purchase building inspection
on the property to identify if there were any significant
faults or major defects that could affect Archicentre’s
plans for redeveloping the existing property.
The inspection found no major faults that
would hinder Archicentre’s plans, but did find a number
of problems often associated with neglect that may have been
issues for other’s planning on buying the home to live
in. These included damp, mildew and cracking. The inspection
information helped Archicentre to work out a plan and a budget
for the proposed renovation. The team then made a successful
offer to the vendor and secured the purchase of property.
Upon confirmation of finance, Archicentre
then exchanged contracts on the sale of the property and agreed
with the vendors that settlement would take place a few months
after the sale.
Buying
a Home Fact Sheet  To select a design that would
make the most of the site and create an environmentally
sustainable, contemporary home on the site, Archicentre
held a design competition amongst its registered Architects
as outlined in Stage Two – The
Design Competition – Getting
a Renovation Design Report 
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