Your home is by far your most valuable asset, and for many reasons it can be considered the crown jewel of your ambitions, and a testament to your overall success and career development. But, like it’s often the case with our long-term investments, what was once enough for you and your spouse might no longer be sufficient for the ongoing demands of your growing family. Perhaps ten years ago the house you just purchased was right for your career and the space demands of two people. But now is 2025, and things are probably looking a bit different.

Do you have children now or are you planning to add a new member to your loving family? Are you need in need of an extra bedroom or living area for the ongoing personal activities of your closed ones? Then, you will either need to invest in the services of a house and granny flat builder in Sydney or go for home builders in NSW and develop a new building from scratch.

Moving into a new house is often not a matter of preferences but of necessity. Are you looking to move closer to your children’s school, seek a quieter neighbourhood in which for them to grow up, or you want to be closer to hiking trails or outdoor spaces? Then, a new house might be a worthwhile investment. But, you also need to be open with your current financial possibilities. Sure, if you are currently living in a centrally located neighbourhood, selling your existing property, renting a flat for a few months, and investing your money in the construction of a new house, with the help of home builders, will be a viable option. That said, things are sometimes more complicated than that.

What if you are trying to move from a small property to a three or four-bedroom house? It’s clear in that case that you will probably struggle in finding a listing that will respect both your practical requirements and budget. So, in such a case, a better deal might be to utilize the services of a house and granny flat builder. Also known as accessory dwelling units, granny flats are self-contained home-living spaces that must be constructed next to an already existing property and follow strict size guidelines.

The benefit of these kinds of buildings lies in their costs and the simplicity of the documentation required to start the construction project. In NSW, granny flats do not need council approval, and the average cost to build one, is somewhere around $150,000 to $200,000. Plus, the benefits to your already existing property will be almost immeasurable. Let’s start with the financial ones. When designed by a house and granny flat builder in Sydney, a one-bedroom ADU, can be rented out for at least $450, per week, which is a steal to most Sydney-tenants, as the average rent in the city for traditional flats with similar size constraints is around $750.

If you are currently in the 32.5% tax bracket, and you rent out your granny flat for somewhere around $450 per month, your gross rental income would sit at around $23,500 per year. After taxes, expenses and potential depreciation benefits granted through the Division 40 and 43 allowances laid out in the Income Tax Assessment Act of 1997, your total net income per year will sit at around $16,000. Which means that you can realistically recoup your total investment in less than ten years. But that’s not all.

The houses built by professional home builders in NSW represent a fantastic investment opportunity, especially so when we consider that the average listing price of NSW properties has risen 35% in the last five years. However not everybody can afford a new house. Do you have a tighter budget and you are simply interested in increasing the square footage of your property while also potentially increasing the market appeal of your old house? In such a case, the services of a house and granny flat builder that’s specialized in ADUs are most likely just what you need.

On average, a granny flat adds somewhere between 25-35% to the overall valuation of market listed-properties. This means that with an average investment of $150,000, your $1mil property might now be worth somewhere closer to $1.3 mil. And that’s before considering the ongoing rental revenue that such a construction will bring. Granny flats are measured by many to be one of the best solutions for the ongoing house market crisis in our country. And the reasons for this are easy to understand.

When built by granny flat experts and home builders, ADUs are a fantastic solution to increase the practicality of already-built properties as they are flexible in their use cases, can be adapted to the subjective requirements of your family, and are quite fast to build. How fast? This will depend on the professionalism of the builder you contact. But on average, building a one-bedroom granny flat in New South Wales, even when taking into consideration the application time for the CDC should not take more than 6 months in total.

Are there caveats to consider? Not really, but one should be understanding with the technical limitations of ADUs. In Sydney, granny flats must follow the technical regulations laid out in the State Environmental Planning Policy of 2021, and this means that new ADUs cannot have a floor space larger than 60 square meters, be constructed on a lot with a size of less than 450 square meters and have a total height of more than 8.5 meters. On top of that, ADUs cannot be subdivided and like any new construction in Australia, must comply with the BCA standards. Therefore, granny flats cannot be a replacement for a new, larger and more centrally located property. Yet, they represent one of the best financial investments you can make.