I Analysed 3 Development Sites Live (Here’s What I Found)

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=ciP0TpLVZyI

Most people have no idea what to look for when they find a development site. They see a big block on realestate.com.au, get excited, and start spending money before they even know if it can work.

Today, I’m walking you through my property development site analysis process, exactly what goes through my head the first time I look at a site. No spreadsheets, no feasibilities yet. Just the raw first-pass thinking that tells me whether a site is worth five more minutes of my time.

I asked Gavin from our development team to pick three random sites across three different councils. I haven’t seen them yet. Different residential zonings, different areas. I’m coming in completely blind, and I’m going to talk you through each one live, off the cuff, exactly how I’d assess them if they landed in my inbox today.

But here’s what most people don’t realise. The thing that kills most projects isn’t the numbers. It’s something you can spot in the first two minutes if you know what to look for. And I’ll show you exactly what that is.

All right, team, let’s get into it. Gav has given me three sites, and I’m going to move through them one by one. Hopefully, he hasn’t stitched me up. Let’s dive in and see exactly what I see first, and how I go through it. Here we go.

Site One: 17 Phillip Avenue, Doncaster

We’ve got 17 Phillip Avenue in Doncaster, just out of Melbourne. Bang, punch it into Land Checker, trusty Land Checker.

Zoom out straight away. Where are we? Eastern Freeway, accessibility into the city, happy days.

What’s the orientation doing? The orientation’s north. Land Checker is always set to north. It calibrates to north each time, so you can move it around, but it always faces north.

Now, Manningham Road and High Street are pretty close. Straight away, I’m noting that’s close to the property. Let’s see how far it is.

From our back fence, we’re 50 metres. I don’t love that. So this one’s already struggling.

Sizing Up the Block

From the outset, we’re in Manningham Council. We’ve got a frontage of 20 metres, and the depth is fine, so we’re sitting at around 900 square metres of land, just shy of it.

For me, I’m struggling with this one because I’m not sure if it’s a big dual occupancy site or a three-to-four townhouse site. Especially with the new ResCode changes, three-to-four sites are becoming more and more attractive thanks to front setbacks, side setbacks, site coverage, bulk, and no neighbourhood character requirements.

We’re in General Residential Zone One with no planning overlay. So we’re clean as, perfect from a zone and overlay perspective.

But it’s not really a dual occupancy site. It’s probably too big. You’re going to pay too much for the land, and the dwellings are going to be too big. For a dual occupancy, I’d rather be closer to 700 or 750 square metres. At 900, it’s getting too big. So it’s an in-between, which I don’t like either.

Slope and Intersection Issues

So we’ve got the road, we’ve got the in-between size, and we’ve got a T-intersection as well. The T-intersection runs straight into our property. That isn’t always a good thing, especially when you consider feng shui and different cultures. So that’s not a tick.

Being out in Doncaster, the last tick box we need to check is the topography, the slope of the block, because it’s always slopey out there. And based on what I’m seeing, it’s sloping upwards towards the back, which I don’t like.

I prefer it going the other way. That way, we can mould the slope into our design, create a split level, step down into our living zone, and gain a higher ceiling height out there. If it’s sloping back, you’ve got design options. But this one is sloping up.

I reckon it’s probably about two metres over our footprint. For me, that’s too big, you’ve got retaining walls and extra concrete. The slope will feature too heavily in the design, and it’ll have too many steps in it. As I said, it’s sloping the wrong way for the way I like to design.

The Two-Minute Call

Breaking it down, this is what I mean, in two minutes, we’ve worked through this site, because there are so many sites out there. This is what we need to think about first, and we need to think fast.

For me, it’s too close to Manningham Road. That’s three lanes each way, six lanes total, 50 metres from my backyard. You’re going to hear that. You’re going to feel that. So it’s too close on that front, and then there’s the slope on top.

For me, that one’s a no, and that’s how quickly we can make the call. We’ve checked the zoning, the council, the overlays, when it was last purchased, the land size, and the frontage, all those things. I’ve already crossed it off the list.

Even if it did work, the access looks pretty good for getting our two crossovers in if you were doing a dual occupancy. If you’re doing three to four townhouses, you’d still want the other crossover at the front, but you can still make it work with one access. So access looks okay, but we didn’t even get to that point.

If you’re out there scrolling through listings right now, trying to figure out what’s worth a closer look, join the Little Fish Network. It’s our free property development network, where people share sites they’re looking at, ask questions, and learn from each other’s projects. It takes two minutes, link’s in the description.

Site Two: 12 Turkeith Avenue, Hearn Hill

Right, let’s look at the next one. Gav, what have you got for me? Twelve Turkeith Avenue, Hearn Hill. Let’s get into it, trusty Land Checker again.

Zoom out. We’re on the outskirts of Geelong, Melbourne side. There are some nice school zones out here, and it’s reasonably flat. I’ve already got the topography on, it was preset, and we’re flat over here, which we know, and that’s why we don’t mind it.

Orientation again, Gav has found me another one with a north-facing orientation, which we like. We’ve got 18 metres of frontage and 32 metres of depth, which we’re happy with.

Six hundred square metres, not bad. I’d probably prefer the depth a little further, but based on the new ResCode and smaller front setbacks, we’re reasonably happy.

Dual Occupancy and Double Storey

Based on the size, I’d say this is just a dual occupancy site, which is fine. Like I was saying earlier, you need the site to do what you need it to do.

You can’t find a site that’s too big and decide to do a dual occupancy, or a site that’s too small when you want to do three or four. The site needs to fit what you want to do. Don’t try to wrestle it into something it’s not really geared for.

So we’re looking at a dual occupancy site. Based on 600 square metres and the length, we’re definitely doing a double storey. We do some single-storey dual occupancies and some double-storey dual occupancies. This one would be a double storey, because it just hasn’t got the length or the footprint to be a single storey dual occupancy.

Frontage, Shadowing, and Crossovers

Now let’s go in at high res. The frontage is really good, really wide, which means we can do quite wide designs. The setback would let you come forward. The slope’s good, and you’re off any main drags. You’ve got a school there and a shopping village there.

For me, if I had a client looking for a dual occupancy, and obviously it’s a bit cheaper down in that Geelong area, this would be a site worth looking at.

On shadowing, you need to be a little cautious with habitable windows on that side. The other side would be reasonably okay, but we’re close to the boundary as well. The good news is we’ve got 18 metres of frontage, so you’ve got room to move and to set things back on the upper level. We’ve got the north-facing backyard, and there’s nothing out the front to stop our driveway.

Zoning, Overlay, and What’s Around

Compared to Phillip Avenue, this one is ticking the boxes, no slope issue, great orientation, away from main roads, and I’m getting my crossovers in. So it’s a tick, tick, tick. If my client is looking for something in these areas, then it needs further investigation.

We know we’re in Greater Geelong Council, so that’s fine. We look at zones, Neighbourhood Residential Zone, that’s fine. And we’ve got a Design and Development Overlay schedule.

When you’ve got overlays like this, you do need to read into them. They ensure siting, height, and visual bulk of dwellings achieve reasonable sharing of views between properties, particularly to significant landscape features such as the coast. So that’s an overlay that protects views where views exist. This location isn’t getting any views, so we won’t be blocking any.

While we’re at it, let’s see what else is going on. There’s a side by side dual occupancy over the road, happy days. And there’s a corner development site nearby.

As we know, areas like this are gentrifying. The developments aren’t everywhere, but it’s nice to see a few popping up. So this site ticks the fundamentals. From here, we’d start looking into resales and purchase prices to see how the numbers stack up.

Site Three: 22 Collins Street, Preston

All right, Gav, final one, third and final. Where have you taken me? Twenty-two Collins Street in Preston.

You’ve definitely taken me right around the place, around to the east, back down to the Bellarine Peninsula in Geelong, and now we’re up in the north in Preston. Let’s go.

Zoom out. We’re on Collins Street, not far from St George’s Road, which runs straight into the city. We’re surrounded by Northcote, Coburg, and Preston, definitely an up-and-coming area. It’s away from busy roads, and we like that.

Gav’s found another north-facing site, so you can see he’s on target. The slope on the property looks to be a metre from front to back, so that doesn’t scare me. We can deal with that, pick up a little in the front setback and a little in the back setback. That’s not as scary.

We’ve got 1,000 square metres here, and we’re in the Housing Choice and Transport Zone.

The Heritage Overlay Catch

So what we do know… oh, okay. Here we go. Heritage overlay. This is why we’re doing this live, because that is a good planning zone, high activity for sure.

But when we go into the overlays, we’re in a heritage overlay, in a very small pocket. For me, that’s not good. That’s not good at all.

So what is everyone else doing in this pocket, if anything? There are units in this area, some older units down here, and a few that are reasonably old as well. So there are some older units in here, which suggests this might be a reasonably recent overlay that’s been plonked on this little street. Again, I’m not completely sure.

For this site to go further, it would need to go to my town planner. I’d need to dig in deeper and ask: what does this overlay mean, and what does it mean for us as a developer? So we push on, because if it is a good site, we need to push through, confirm it’s a good site, and then send it to the planner.

What Could Be Built Here

At 1,000 square metres, reasonably flat, in a great area, as far as doing four to five townhouses on it, based on the new ResCode, we could potentially get to six three-bedders with one car park each.

It’s got a great orientation as well, in a nice area of Melbourne, with a good planning zone. It’s the overlay I’m a bit scared of. As we can see from the council information, we’re in Darebin.

For getting our crossovers in, we’ve got a power pole right on the boundary, and a tree on the site sort of in the middle. We’ve got 20 metres of frontage, so whether we can get a crossover between the tree and the power pole would need further investigation. Obviously, we’ve got the existing crossover there anyway.

If we’re looking, which we would be, at a four-to-six townhouse site, one access is doable.

Pushing It to the Planner

This one is probably landing right in the middle. It’s a great north-facing, reasonably flat site. I’m not that scared about shadowing. We’ve got our driveway along this side and great separation from the neighbour. Darebin is fine as a council, and the planning zone is good, it’s encouraging activity and density.

But that heritage overlay does scare me a bit. It’s got enough going for it to persist with and look further.

Once I’d done what I’ve done so far, I’d look at what they’re trying to sell it for. I’d then check resale prices and run a quick buy-build-end-value calculation, to sell or to hold, whatever your strategy is.

If the numbers are ticking along, I’d flick it off to the town planner and ask: is this something I need to be cautious of? He’ll come back to me either saying yep, it’s going to be an issue, or no, you can play on.

When to Walk Away

Quick note on that. If he tells me it’s going to be an issue, I cut the site straight away. It needs to be cut straight away, because diving into a site after the planner has flagged an issue is a recipe for pain. We cut it, and we move on.

That’s probably the lesson in all of this. Fundamentally, it’s a good site, and it’s progressed to the second stage of analysis. But if he tells you it’s not going to work, don’t argue with him. Don’t say, what if this, what if that?

Now, if you already own the site, it’s a different conversation. You’ve already got it, you’re lumped with it. So work with the planner, try to figure out the best outcome, push through, and get the outcome you’re chasing.

But if you’re at the buyer’s stage and you’re trying to buy the site, move on. These overlays will come up and bite you when you think you’re through, when you think you’re out of it. They just become hard. So let’s stay away from them and push on with the clean sites.

Next Steps for Your Site Analysis

If you want to take this further, here’s where to start. The Little Fish Network is free. Jump in, ask questions, and see how other people are thinking through their own sites.

If you want someone in your corner walking you through your own project step by step, we do one-on-one property development mentoring. You get me helping you avoid expensive mistakes and make better decisions from day one.

If finding the right site is the bit you’re stuck on, we can help with that too with our buyers agent service. We help people secure sites that actually work financially, not just ones that look good on a listing.

And if you’d rather hand the whole thing over and have someone run it from start to finish, our team of development project managers can manage the entire process, so you don’t have to deal with the day-to-day. Feel free to book a call with me to discuss the best option for you and your project any time.

Filled under: All Case Studies Developer Insights