You can just take your builder for an inspection if your only after a general idea, we sold a property last year and the buyer did the same thing.

@K s that’s a good suggestion but we don’t have a builder yet! I was wondering more if a design pro would be able to give us some ideas?

Dr Retro House Calls (who is on Houzz) does that sort of thing. By the way the facade is beautiful.

Thanks @cmnaustralia , that’s good to know some building designers do this. Thanks for the facade compliment, unfortunately that’s not mine! But we are looking at a very similar one.

Hi Cameron

A Feasibility Stage of service is a standard & contained first step of consultancy service we regularly provide. In fact it's the only way forward as a first stage for any type of project we are approached with, whether that be a fitout, renovation/extension or new build scenario. The thing is however, to perform this exercise properly, that is competently and comprehensively, it's not necessarily a quick exercise that we can smash out in a day or two. It typically occurs over about a month or so, and sometimes extends beyond into months depending upon client responses, review and consequential decision making that occurs in the process. This is not black & white stuff where dealing with here. To begin with there is a certain amount of information to collate including client's ideal brief, ballpark budget, contextual data including both existing building conditions, site levels, surrounding neighbourhood context, which often involves engaging land surveying services and any relevant planning policies or applicable constraints associated with the title such as easements, covenants etc......We then have to work through some targeted options and explore the design opportunities and possibilities before then applying cost projections to scenarios and potential variations of so that there is a collection of super accurate and relevant information to be able to present to the client to then compare and weigh up properly. That's the proper way to do it and it's not necessarily a quick or cheap exercise.

I can appreciate however that as an exercise this may be practically overkill for you being in a pre-purchase situation.

I have on occasion been brought in to advise on potential property purchases to provide advice on what is possible for what likely ballpark. Yes we can throw around numbers but it's a pretty rough & ready exercise and involves significant disclaimers and ridiculously broad cost windows, as how long is a piece of string? You essentially put a circle around a number rounded to the nearest $100K and then do a plus or minus 25% or 30%, as so many factors & decisions will influence the eventual cost.

If you're however after a super quick & easy rough idea, perhaps considering disclosing some details of the property (plans/context etc) you're considering, your ballpark budget for additional work, a summary of what your trying to achieve, and I'll tell you straight up for free after looking at it for a minute or so whether you're thinking is within a realistic ballpark or whether it's a likely challenged scenario that will require some work to appropriately align you budget and consolidate your goals. If I had to take a punt I'd say more than likely whatever you're thinking you can achieve is going to require more $$ than you expect. The reason I say that is because after doing this for quite a while now I've only ever once had a client provide me with a realistic starting ballpark budget appropriately aligned to their brief. That's right, to date, it's only happened ONCE in a couple of decades!......

Yes, as suggested Dr Retro may be able to offer some appropriate focused guidance & advice with his Virtual House Calls service.

Best of luck

Cheers PD :)

www.pauldistefanodesign.com

@Paul Di Stefano Design thanks for the generous offer! I'll send you a private message. I appreciate that it would definitely take time to do it right, thank you for understanding my situation.

Hi Cameron, whereabouts is the property? I am based in Melbourne, but a currently planning my next set of interstate visits for my "Dr Retro House Call" clients in July. Please check out my reviews on Houzz and contact me if you want to make an appointment for an on-site consultation.