Answering: Should we renovate this house or move?
Estimated reading time: 8 min read
Stay if this house, altered honestly, can still hold the way you actually live. Move if the gap is not a room but a life: the street, the school, the lot, the overlay, the light, the stairs, the neighbours: something a good architect cannot design out. The framework is not “renovation is cheaper” and it is not “moving is simpler.” It is four tests: does the plan still fit, can the building and the planning controls accept the change, can you fund the stay once surprises are named, and would a different house only repeat the same problem. At BY Projects Architecture that conversation happens before design, in a 45-minute Feasibility Session. We sketch while we talk. We are not your selling agent, and we are not going to talk you into a renovation because that is what we do.
You are standing in the hallway with a real-estate app open and a builder’s card on the bench. The kids have run out of bedrooms, or the parents can no longer do the stairs, or the kitchen has been “temporary” for eleven years. Someone at dinner said you would get more house for your money in the next suburb. Someone else said you would be mad to give up this street.
Both people can be right, and neither has walked your overlay, your roof, or your Saturday morning. The expensive error is making a lifestyle decision with a renovation quote, or a building decision with a listing price. This is a different question from renovating versus knocking down and rebuilding, which we cover separately. This is: this house, reworked, or a different house.
Key Insights
- Moving and renovating fail for different reasons. Moving fails when the next house has the same missing room. Renovating fails when you are trying to change a life that is attached to the land, not the plan.
- Land-transfer duty (stamp duty) is a real cost of buying in Victoria. It is a State Revenue Office matter, not architectural advice. Count it. Do not ask us to minimise it.
- A Heritage Overlay, a small lot, or a house that is already at its planning envelope can make “just add a storey” the wrong stay-strategy. That is a feasibility finding, not a reason to panic-sell.
- The useful first drawing is the one that tests whether this house can become the house you need. If it cannot, moving is the skilled answer.
| Test | Stay and renovate if… | Move if… |
|---|---|---|
| Life fit | The street, school, trees, neighbours and commute are still the point | You are done with this location, this lot, or this community |
| Plan fit | The missing pieces are rooms, light, a bathroom, a connection to the garden | You need a different kind of dwelling (single-level, a second dwelling, a completely different scale) that this envelope will not hold |
| Building and controls | Structure, services and overlays can accept the work with a permit path you can describe | The overlay, the lot, or the existing fabric make the brief a fight you do not want |
| Money | You can fund the stay after naming consultants, surprises and the cost of living through a build | Purchase price plus duty plus selling costs plus the inevitable work on the next house still looks like the better life |
| Repeat risk | A renovation here solves the actual problem | Every inspection in the next suburb shows the same stairs, the same dark plan, the same overlay |
Keep reading for full details below.
Table of Contents
- The life test: is the problem the house, or the place?
- The fabric and controls test: what will this building actually accept?
- The money test: count the move properly, without tax advice
- A working sequence so you do not do both badly
The life test: is the problem the house, or the place?
Architects are biased toward buildings. Name that, then put it down.
If you love the street, the school walk, this tree, this neighbour, this 4pm light, you do not have a house problem a different postcode will solve. You have a plan, thermal, bathroom or overlay problem. Those are our jobs.
If you are done with the commute, the flood-prone back, the south-facing cave, the stairs you already know you cannot manage at seventy, a beautiful renovation still leaves you in the wrong life. Moving is reading the brief.
Write three sentences that would still be true if the kitchen were perfect. If they are about this corner of Melbourne, stay is on the table. If they are about getting out, stop collecting renovation ideas. The expensive regrets are rarely about the tap. They are renovating a house you already wanted to leave, or selling a street you still dream about.
The fabric and controls test: what will this building actually accept?
Assume the life test said stay. Now the house has to become the house you need.
Plan. Can the missing room be found without destroying what you stayed for? Rear living that finds the garden, a better bathroom, a bedroom on the entry level, daylight into a dark terrace: ordinary serious work. A house that needs to be a different house (twice the floor area, a second dwelling, a reversed orientation the lot will not allow) may not be a renovation. That finding should arrive before you love a sketch.
Structure and services. Old roofs, stumps, plumbing, no insulation: cost and sequence, not automatically a move. We are not engineers or building surveyors. Feasibility is when we say this is a conversation for a structural engineer.
Overlays and the zone. A Heritage Overlay does not mean you must move. It means significant fabric, especially the street elevation, is the brief. The practice’s 59-plus heritage approvals / 98 per cent historical success is a record of past overlay work, not a promise about your stay. Plenty of stays are not heritage jobs. A landscape overlay, a flood overlay, a small lot, a covenant can shape the stay more than the kitchen. Read VicPlan.
Living through it. Occupied renovation is not a vacant house. If the household cannot take the disruption of living through construction, that is a valid reason to move, stage, or rent.
If this test fails, do not try a cheaper architect. The house has answered.
The money test: count the move properly, without tax advice
People compare a renovation quote to a listing price. Wrong pair.
If you stay: design, consultants, permits, construction, contingency for what the walls hide, occupying or vacating. No honest dollar-per-metre we will print. A quantity surveyor does the cost plan. We coordinate; we do not replace them.
If you move: selling costs, purchase price, land-transfer duty (stamp duty) at State Revenue Office rates, inspections, moving, the work the next house needs anyway, and the chance it has an overlay, a slope, or a plan you will want to change.
Victorian duty is a sliding scale, and concessions, including principal-residence concessions, change what a given purchase actually pays. The current rates and a calculator sit on the State Revenue Office site; run your numbers there rather than on anyone’s summary, including ours. We are not tax advisers. Barbara has not given stamp-duty advice. SRO calculator, then accountant and conveyancer. Duty is large enough that “we’ll buy something finished” is often neither.
No promised return on either path. A stay that costs more than a move can still be the right life. A cheaper-looking move can dump you in the renovation you just avoided.
A working sequence so you do not do both badly
Do this in order. Skipping is how people list the house and lodge a planning application in the same month.
- Three life sentences. Location or dwelling.
- Facts on this house: title, VicPlan, what is actually failing. Not a mood board.
- Short feasibility on the stay. Forty-five minutes, pencil on the table. Can this building accept the brief; who else is in the room. The practice has worked across 10-plus Victorian councils and more than 200 permit applications: process fluency, not a booked outcome.
- Only then look at the other house with the same tests. If it needs the same renovation, you have relocated the problem and paid duty to do it.
- Stay, move, or pause. Pause is allowed. Drawing a renovation you do not intend to build is how fees disappear.
An honest pencil is the right tool for step 3. A poor tool for talking yourself out of a move you already need.
Closing
Renovate this house if the place is still the point and the building can accept the brief. Move if the life has already left the lot. Count duty and disruption on the move, and surprises and occupancy on the stay. Do not use a renovation to postpone a leaving, and do not sell a street you still want. For how we test a stay before design, see our process and renovation architects Melbourne.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: Is renovating always cheaper than moving in Melbourne?
A: No. Once you count land-transfer duty, selling costs and the work the next house needs, a stay can look expensive and still be the better life, or the reverse. There is no ratio we will invent. Price both sides with the ugly extras in.
Q: We are in a Heritage Overlay. Does that mean we have to move to change anything?
A: No. It means the significant fabric, especially what the street sees, is the brief, not the obstacle. Many stays are rear additions and internal work. A full gut of a principal elevation is a different fight. The practice’s 59-plus heritage approvals are a historical record, not a forecast for your application. If the overlay and your brief cannot meet, that is a reason to change the brief or the house, not a reason to assume every overlay property is unsellable or unalterable.
Q: How is this different from renovate versus knock down and rebuild?
A: That question is about this lot, this existing building, and whether you keep it or replace it. This question is about this lot versus a different address. The rebuild question has its own article: renovate or knock down and rebuild under a Heritage Overlay.
Q: What should we bring to a Feasibility Session if we might still sell?
A: The planning property report, any survey you have, and the three life sentences. Barbara will sketch the stay. If the stay fails the tests, you will hear that. Book it at schedule a feasibility session.
Want to Learn More?
BY Projects Architecture, with 35-plus years and 400-plus projects across Victoria, works on substantial renovations, extensions, new work and difficult sites. We would rather you moved well than renovated a house you already wanted to leave. If the stay is real, we will draw it as if you are going to live in it.
Citations
- Land transfer duty, State Revenue Office Victoria. The SRO’s land transfer duty hub, including current rates, concessions and the duty calculator. Cited as a cost of buying, not as advice. https://www.sro.vic.gov.au/land-transfer-duty
- How provisions work, Planning Victoria. Zones and overlays, and that an overlay may require a permit without changing the zone’s intent. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/guides/practitioners-guide-to-victorias-planning-schemes/how-provisions-work
- Planning permits, Planning Victoria. The permit process an alteration may have to walk. https://www.planning.vic.gov.au/guides-and-resources/guides/guide-to-victorias-planning-system/planning-permits
- Heritage overlay, Yarra City Council. A live inner-Melbourne example of what a Heritage Overlay typically triggers (demolition, external alteration, works). Your council’s scheme is the one that applies. https://www.yarracity.vic.gov.au/planning-and-building/heritage/heritage-overlay
