For owners and buyers
Know what the site can carry before you put another dollar into it.
You own a property that takes money out of your pocket every month. Or you have found one and you are not sure about it. Either way, we run the address through the same model we use on our own sites and show you what it can carry. You own it. You borrow. You keep all of it.
Which one is you
Two ways people get here. Both end the same way.
You already own it
The property costs you money every month and it is never going to grow into anything.
- Negatively geared, and the tax break is not the reason you bought it
- No development upside anyone has ever actually checked
- You are not a developer and you do not want to become one
- The thought of a council planning process is enough on its own to leave it alone
You already own the upside. Nobody has told you whether it is there. No new purchase. No new deposit. No new stamp duty. The same building, working harder.
You are looking at one
You have found a property and you think it could work, but you cannot prove it.
- The numbers only stack up if the room count is right, and you are guessing
- The listing says nothing about overlays, setbacks or what the council will allow
- Every professional you could ask answers one narrow slice of the question
- You have a finance clause running out and no way to settle the question inside it
You find out before you sign, not after. And if the answer is that the site does not work, that is the most valuable thing we can tell you.
Either way you finish holding a site that works, and nobody else holds a piece of it.
The part nobody checks
Three things kill a rooming house site.
None of them appear in the listing. All three are knowable before you sign, and each one has ended somebody’s project after they already owned the land.
01
A planning overlay nobody read
Heritage, bushfire, flood, neighbourhood character. One overlay can turn a permit into a two-year argument, or stop the use outright.
02
Room count the site cannot carry
The number in your head and the number the setbacks, parking and amenity rules allow are usually different. The gap is the whole margin.
03
Build cost priced from the wrong benchmark
Rooming houses are not standard residential builds. Compliance, fire and services push the rate well past what a project-home quote implies.
Two ways to get this done
The old way costs you a share of everything. Forever.
The old way — bring in a developer
15%
- A share of the profit on the project
- And a cut of the income after it is built
- Taken for as long as you own it
- The knowledge leaves when they do
- Next site, you start again from nothing
Our Method
Once
- One fixed fee, paid one time
- Not a percentage. Not a share. Nothing ongoing
- You keep every dollar it earns, every year you hold it
- You keep the model, the criteria and the benchmarks
- Next site you run yourself, for nothing
One of those two columns keeps taking. The other one stops.
What that actually buys
You are not buying a report. You are buying what it unlocks.
- 01 You buy with certainty instead of hope The site either carries a rooming house or it does not, and you know which before you sign.
- 02 You own it outright No partner, no profit share, nobody sitting on your title. Nobody to ask.
- 03 You keep everything it earns, every year you hold it We are paid once, in year one, and never again. Year two costs you nothing. Nor does year twenty.
- 04 Improving the income improves the asset A rooming house is valued off the income it produces. That is the mechanism, and it is why this asset class rewards operators who understand it.
- 05 You keep the model The criteria, the kill list, the cost benchmarks. The next site you assess yourself, in an afternoon, for nothing.
- 06 It stops being a project and becomes a portfolio Which is the actual reason anybody does this. Not one building. The ability to keep going.
All of it from one fee, paid one time, in the first year.
What you get
The same model we run on our own sites, pointed at yours.
Not a course, not a template pack. Your address, our numbers, and the calls to work through what they mean.
01
Feasibility model built on your address
Room yield, build cost, holding costs, the numbers laid out line by line. You keep the file.
02
The site criteria and the kill list
What makes a site work, and the specific things that quietly end a project. Reusable on every site you look at after this one.
03
Planning pathway for your council
Which permit you need, what the objections usually are, and the sequence that avoids the six-month detour.
04
Build cost benchmark from live projects
Real rates from our own Victorian and Queensland projects, not a per-square figure off a website.
05
Advisory calls through the decision
The part people actually buy. Someone who has done it, on the phone, when the thing you did not expect turns up.
06
A straight answer, including no
If the site does not work we say so and refund the fee. We would rather tell you that than watch you buy it.
—
And much, much more
Everything we have learned doing this with our own money, applied to your address. The list above is what we write down. The rest comes out on the calls.
We do this with our own money first
Four rooming houses. One street. All ours.
Every number traces back to a project we funded, designed, permitted and took through to completion as the developer. That is the only reason it is worth anything to you.
Some of our work
Acacia Ridge
Acacia Ridge
Acacia Ridge
Acacia Ridge
Melbourne
Geelong
And much, much more
Delivered, underway, and more behind them. Not a case study we read about. Our money, our names on the contracts, our mistakes already paid for.
Where to start
Start small. Nobody writes a stranger a big cheque.
Begin with one site and 45 minutes. If it is worth going further, everything you already paid comes off the fee.
Step one
Free
Rooming House Reality Check
Seven questions about the site you are looking at. Tells you whether it is worth a proper look before you spend anything.
Step two
$495
Site Check
Analysis and reporting on your address, then 45 minutes with the developers behind four of them. Inside five business days.
Step three
$20,000
The Rooming House Method
Foundation rate — half of what this becomes. Once the first group is full, the fee for this engagement doubles.
The full model, the criteria, the council pathway, the cost benchmark and the advisory calls through the decision.
Foundation pricing
We run a small number of these at a time. The foundation rate holds while we
take on the first group. Once it is full, the fee for this engagement doubles. We will give you the exact figure on the call.
Paid in full, or two payments of $11,000.
Your $495 Site Check fee comes off this in full.
The $495 comes off it in full if you go ahead. Start at the bottom and the first step costs you nothing at all.
What the Site Check actually is
You get
- A desktop read of the planning position on your address
- An indicative room yield the site could carry
- A build cost range from our own live projects
- The two or three things most likely to kill it
- 45 minutes with the developers behind four of them
You do not get
- A certified or lender-ready feasibility report
- A site inspection, survey or measure-up
- Geotechnical, contamination or services investigation
- A builder’s quote or a fixed price
- Any guarantee of a planning outcome
The 45 minutes is the product. A formal written feasibility in Australia runs into the thousands and takes weeks. This is not that, and it is not pretending to be. It is a straight conversation with people who have built these, early enough to be worth having.
And look at what it is, spread across the time you will own the thing. Twenty thousand dollars, once. Hold the property twenty years and that is a thousand dollars a year — for an asset that is yours, not ours, and a share of nothing that ever goes back out the door.
Where the line sits
We assess the site. We never touch your money.
We show you the potential of the site. That is the whole job. We are not your agent, your broker, your lawyer or your partner. We give no financial, credit, legal or tax advice, and there is nothing here for us to take a clip of. That is deliberate, and it is the reason you keep everything.
What we do
- Assess whether the site can physically and lawfully carry a rooming house
- Model room yield, build cost and holding costs on your address
- Map the planning pathway for your council
- Tell you what would kill it, including when the answer is that it is already dead
What we never do
- Tell you whether to buy it, or what return you will make
- Find, negotiate or bid on the property for you
- Arrange, recommend or introduce a specific loan
- Hold your money, your title, or any share of your profit
Before you ask
The questions everybody asks.
What do I actually get for the Site Check?
A desktop read of the planning position on your address, an indicative room yield, a build cost range from our own live projects, and the two or three things most likely to kill it. Then 45 minutes on a call with the developers behind them. The call is the product.
Is it a formal feasibility report?
No, and we will not pretend otherwise. A certified, lender-ready feasibility in Australia runs into the thousands and takes weeks. This is a high-level concept check and a straight conversation, priced so you can have it early, before you have spent anything that matters.
What if the site does not work?
Then we tell you, plainly, and that is the most valuable answer we can give you. If we cannot form a view on the site at all, you get the fee back.
Do you find the property for me?
No. You find it, you negotiate it, you buy it. We assess what it can carry. Acting for you in a purchase is a licensed activity and a different service entirely.
Do you arrange the finance?
No. We do not arrange, recommend or introduce loans, and we give no credit advice. Your broker or lender handles that, and we are happy to work alongside them on the numbers.
Do you take a share of the profit?
Never. One fixed fee, paid once. We do not take equity, a profit share, a trailing fee or a cut of the income. You own the site, the debt and everything it earns.
I already own the property. Is this still for me?
Yes, and it is often the better case. There is no new purchase, no new deposit and no new stamp duty. The question is simply whether the building you already hold can carry more than it does now.
Where do you work?
Victoria, with Queensland on request. Our delivered rooming houses are in Queensland and our current builds are in Victoria, so the cost rates and council pathways in both states come from live files.
How many of these do you take on?
A small number at a time. This is our own team, not a call centre, and the same people are running live developments. When the current group is full, the next one waits.
What if I want to go further than the Site Check?
Then the fee comes off in full and we move to the full engagement: the model built on your address, the site criteria and kill list, the planning pathway for your council, the cost benchmark, and the advisory calls through the decision.
Step two
Send us the address.
Four fields. The technical detail is what you are paying us to find out, so we do not ask you for it.