Staying in the street you already like and replacing the house on it. For a lot of families it is the most sensible move available — you keep the location, the established garden, the school zone and the neighbours, and you get a home built to current standards instead of one patched up around decisions made in the 1970s.
It is also the path with the most steps in front of it, and the one where a builder who organises the whole thing is worth the most. We do organise the whole thing.
We arrange the demolition
This is the part people most underestimate, so it is worth being blunt about what is involved.
Demolition is not one trade turning up with an excavator. It is an asbestos assessment on anything built before the 1990s and a licensed removalist if it is found; disconnecting and capping water, sewer, power and gas with four separate authorities; the shed, the driveway, the old concrete and sometimes a pool; waste classification and disposal; and a demolition approval that is a separate process from the approval for your new home.
You do not chase any of that. We book it, we sequence it against the build approval so you are not paying to hold an empty block for months waiting on a permit, and it reaches you as one job with one point of contact. If you would rather arrange demolition yourself you can, and some clients with a trade background do — but it is not the default and it is not expected.
What makes an established block different
New estate lots are rectangles designed around modern homes. Established blocks in East Albury, North Albury, Lavington, Glenroy and central Wodonga were not, and three things follow from that.
The dimensions are often unusual. Deeper and narrower than they look, or wider and shallower, because they were subdivided under rules that no longer apply. Occasionally this is a gift — a lot of established Albury blocks are considerably larger than anything in a current release.
The services come in from odd places. A sewer connection at the back corner, a power pole on the wrong side, a water meter under what used to be a carport. All workable, all better known before the design than during it.
Current setbacks apply, not the old ones. The existing house may sit closer to a boundary than you would now be permitted to build. This is the most common reason a design that "obviously fits" does not.
Designs that suit older lots
Narrower frontages are where our Foundation and Evolve ranges earn their keep. The Bella 23 works on an 11-metre frontage and still keeps the butler's pantry and the walk-in linen. The Dani 22 fits 13 metres with four bedrooms.
Where the block is generous — and plenty of established Albury blocks are — the Elevate range opens up, and the extra depth of an older lot often suits it better than a new release would.
If nothing fits the shape you have, that is a strong argument for a one-off custom design, which on an awkward established block is frequently the better answer rather than the expensive one.
The approvals, in the order they happen
Demolition approval and building approval are separate, and which authority handles them depends on which side of the border you are on. An Albury block runs through the New South Wales system; a Wodonga block through the Victorian one. We manage both ends of that, and the sequencing is the part that saves you money: getting the build approval moving while demolition is being arranged rather than after it is finished.
Where you live in the meantime
Worth planning early, because the answer shapes your finances more than most design decisions do. Most of our knockdown rebuild clients rent nearby or stay with family. The honest framing is that the timeline runs from demolition approval to handover, not from the day you decide — and you will usually be carrying rent and a construction loan at the same time for part of it. We will give you a realistic sequence at the first meeting rather than an optimistic one.
Start with a visit to your existing home
Not our office. We come to the block, look at what is there, what the neighbours' windows see, where the sun lands, and what is worth keeping. A good deal of a knockdown rebuild brief is about what stays — a tree, a view, a north-facing back yard — and none of that is visible from a title plan.
