Construction Leads in Croydon Park, NSW

Residential construction in Croydon Park

Croydon Park, 2133, is a funny little pocket. It’s not Marrickville, and it’s not Burwood. It sits in the middle, squeezed between the Cooks River and the railway line, and the building scene here reflects that. The housing stock is a real mix. You’ve got your classic Californian bungalows from the 1920s, a few solid Federation-era places, and then a scattering of 1960s fibro and brick veneer houses that were thrown up when the area was still working class. But what’s driving the work right now is the knockdown-rebuild crowd. The blocks are generally small – around 400 to 500 square metres – and the older houses are often in rough shape. A lot of them have been rented out for decades, and the owners finally see more value in a clean slate than a gut renovation. That’s where the five development applications lodged recently come in. They’re not huge numbers, but they’re steady. And the most active project types are “other” and new home construction. That “other” category covers a lot of granny flats and dual occupancies, which makes sense given the council’s push for more density without the height.

The local council is a mixed bag. They’re not the slowest in Sydney, but they’re not fast either. Expect three to four months for a straightforward DA on a single dwelling. If you’re doing a knockdown-rebuild, the key is getting your site plan right from the start. They hate overshadowing and they’re strict on setbacks, especially on the side boundaries. A common condition I see is requiring a landscape plan that includes deep soil zones. They want to keep some green in the street. Also, be prepared for a Section 94 contribution. It’s not massive compared to some councils, but it’ll bite you if you haven’t budgeted for it. The planners here are practical, not ideological. If you’ve done your homework and your neighbours aren’t screaming, you’ll get through. But don’t try to push a two-storey box right to the boundary on a 12-metre-wide block. They’ll knock you back.

Who are the clients? Mostly upsizers and renovators. The upsizers are families who bought in the area ten or fifteen years ago, back when it was affordable. They’ve got equity, they’ve got kids, and they want a four-bedroom home with a proper living area and a backyard big enough for a trampoline. They’re not interested in a McMansion. They want something that fits the street. A lot of them are doing a partial knockdown – keeping the front façade of an old bungalow and building a new two-storey addition out the back. That’s the sweet spot here. The renovators are a different breed. They’re usually first-home buyers who scraped together a deposit for a fixer-upper. They’ll spend two years doing it themselves, calling in a chippy for the structural stuff and doing the painting on weekends. They’re tight on cash, so they’ll ask for quotes on everything and then try to shave ten percent off. You have to be patient with them.

The knock-down-rebuild investors are a smaller group, but they’re growing. They see Croydon Park as a bit of a sleeper. It’s close to the city, the schools are decent, and the train station will get you to Central in twenty minutes. They’re building duplexes or townhouses on blocks that can handle it. The problem is land values. A decent 450-square-metre block with an old house on it will set you back around $1.4 million. That’s before you’ve poured a slab. The margins are tight. You need to sell the finished product for $1.8 million plus to make it worthwhile. That’s possible, but it’s not a slam dunk. The market here is steady, not hot. Prices aren’t climbing like they are in the inner west, but they’re not dropping either.

What I see a lot of is homeowners wanting a second storey added to a single-storey brick veneer. The original houses from the 1950s and 60