What buyers in Melbourne’s established suburbs actually pay for

Every development sells on a set of features. Very few of those features are what a buyer is still thinking about five years later.

In the suburbs we work in — Brighton East, Eaglemont, Ivanhoe, Rosanna — the attributes that hold value are consistent and unglamorous. Land area and orientation come first, because they cannot be retrofitted. Natural light and cross-ventilation come next. Then a floor plan that works on an ordinary weekday: where the school bags land, whether two people can pass in the kitchen, whether the living zone can absorb noise.

Fittings matter, but they are the easiest thing on a site to specify and the fastest thing to date. We put the budget into the parts of a building that cannot be changed later, and we would rather explain that decision to a buyer than defend a longer list of inclusions.