February 2025
Renovating may not be the best way to improve your home. With modern building standards, renovating may be far from cost-effective. Replacing your old place with a new home could easily be a smarter investment. Not only will you get the home you want, without compromise, but you could also maximise the value of your location.
How can GJ’s help you?
G.J. Gardner Homes are well experienced in both remove and rebuild and subdividing, and we can offer our knowledge and expertise to our customers throughout the process. For remove and rebuild, we can assist with having the existing home removed or demolished. With subdividing, we can advise on the subdivision potential of your section and coordinate the resource consent preparation with the land surveyor.
What’s the difference between subdividing versus knock-down and rebuild?
Remove and rebuild is when you take an existing house on a property and have it removed or demolished to build a new home in its place.
Subdividing involves taking an existing property and dividing it into smaller freehold sites. Sometimes the existing house remains and there is enough vacant land to create one or more new sites. Other times, the existing house is removed and the property is subdivided into two or more sites.
How are the processes different?
With remove and rebuild we begin by understanding the motivation behind removing the existing house and what our customers would like their new home to achieve. We then work with the customer to find a design that works for both the site and their needs. Once the customer decides on their new home, we support them throughout the process of getting their old house removed and processing the building consent for their new home.
With subdivision, we work with our customers to understand what their motivation is for the additional dwelling or dwellings, and help them understand the additional costs and regulations that need to be met when subdividing.
People subdivide for many different reasons, such as to help get family onto the property ladder, generate rental income or to maximise return from selling. This will determine whether they retain the existing house, move it on site to create more space for the new house or remove it altogether.
We work with land surveyors to confirm the new sites, and obtain the necessary resource consents and titles. We can tailor our building approach to meet the needs of our customers and their ability to fund the builds, by either building multiple new homes at once or building one at a time.
GJ's Manukau Residential Franchisee, Debbie Van Leeuwen explains the Remove and Rebuild experience they had with their previous Glendowie Showhome:
"We had customers who had a fabulous site in Glendowie with an existing older home that didn’t work for their family. They came in and spoke with us around different options. They decided that removing the existing house which sat in the middle of the site and subdividing the property into 2 sites was the best option. This gave them a lovely new family home and a brand new investment property. We were able to work with the customers to design 2 executive level homes that complied with the Auckland Unitary plan, but also delivered beautiful and functional family homes with great outdoor flow.
We started by understanding the customer’s wish list for each of the homes. Being in high value location it was important that the homes felt luxurious and spacious, with multiple living rooms, at least 3 bedrooms, scullery etc. Sometimes we are able to take one of G.J. Gardner’s concept plans, however due to the front house being on a slightly narrower site, we created a custom design that worked with the sloping section, whilst still making the most of having the living and outdoor space on the northerly aspect.
The home was able to achieve being the complete package, being such a feature packed house with beautiful finishes and style throughout, that perfectly fit the compact site. All of our customers can expect the same great service to deliver a home that brings together their wish list and works best for your specific site."
Happy customers and word of mouth have helped GJ’s become New Zealand’s most trusted home builder year after year. If you're thinking of building, or want to learn more about the process of designing and building talk to your local GJ’s team today about building you a home that you can both be proud of.