Dual Occupancy Developments
Its Benefits & Considerations
For the past few years, many individuals and families have been investing in dual occupancy property with reasons such as the size of land, additional income stream for rental, uplift equity and daily lifestyle changes. With prices rising up on daily commodities, Dual Occupancy Property Development seems to be the way to go.
Dual Occupancy Property is where there are two living spaces with only one title, yet oPers a second dwelling ready for occupancy. This secondary living area is entirely separate from the primary space, which could mean you have a separate entrance, garage, bedroom, and amenities that don’t connect to the rest of the home.
In addition to it being relatively cheaper, as compared to building two separate properties, Dual Occupancy Properties won’t require a second title—there won’t be additional ongoing rates and taxes. These kinds of properties reap better return on investments and oPer investors the flexibility and freedom.
To better understand Dual Occupancy Properties, we have listed down three types of dual occupancy developments:
SIDE BY SIDE TOWNHOUSES
These are the most popular types of dual occupancy property development. In side by side townhouses. both homes have their own street frontage and equal amounts of land.
For this type of development, the width of the land is most important and should be a minimum of 15.OM (i.e. 50 feet).
ONE ON TOP OF OTHER
APARTMENTS
These types. of devel.o.pm.ent have ”.becom.» .”very popular with investors who .are. dawnsizin!g from family homes .and preferto I|ve. on:a: sin.gle Ievel in..a. generously sized apart.m.entwith a low maintenance “lock up and leave” lifestyle.
ONE BEHIND THE OTHER TOWNHOUSES
These types of Dual Occupancy Development, on the other hand, have become less popular nowadays because the size of the rear townhouse is greatly limited by town planning regulations and a signifcant amount of land is taken up by the driveway for the rear townhouse.
However, for larger land sizes (i.e. over 800 M2) or corner blocks over 600 Mr this type of d ual occupancy can still work well.
In the inner Melbourne suburbs, dual occupancy developments can be done on relatively compact blocks of land of approximately 400M*. But in most other suburbs, the recommended land size for a dual occupancy development is 600 M* + and the width of the block is often more important than the depth. Corner properties also add more design flexibility for dual occupancies and better street frontage design opportunities and often sell for much higher prices, a great move for investors to reap better return on investments.
Car parking and garages often present significant design and town planning challenges for dual occupancies especially on smaller blocks. Basement garaging can solve this problem and also add extra storage and amenity for the town houses but at a significant additional building cost.