Coverage
Buy My Backyard operates Australia-wide, with active assessment capacity in all major cities and their surrounding suburbs. If you own residential property in Australia, you can submit a free assessment.
Active across metro Sydney, Western Sydney, the North Shore, Inner West, Eastern Suburbs, Southern Sydney, Northern Beaches, Hills District, and the Central Coast. Many NSW properties qualify for the complying development pathway — significantly reducing approval time.
Active across Melbourne metro including the inner suburbs, middle ring, and outer east and west. Victoria has clear secondary dwelling provisions under the VicSmart pathway for eligible properties, and many Melbourne suburbs are particularly well-suited to the programme given their lot sizes.
Active across Brisbane and South East Queensland. Queensland's secondary dwelling planning framework is well-suited to the Buy My Backyard model, and many established Brisbane suburbs have lot configurations that qualify. Many properties across the corridor are strong candidates for the programme.
Active across Perth metropolitan area. Perth's established suburban areas — particularly the middle and inner ring — have strong lot sizes and planning environments well-suited to secondary dwelling development. Many Perth properties have unused backyard space suited to the programme.
Active across Adelaide and surrounding areas. South Australia's planning framework supports secondary dwelling development in most residential zones, and Adelaide's established inner and middle suburbs offer good qualification rates for the programme.
We also operate in Tasmania (Hobart), the Australian Capital Territory (Canberra), the Northern Territory (Darwin), and regional areas across all states. Each state has its own secondary dwelling planning framework — we assess based on the specific rules that apply to your property's location.
Across Sydney, Melbourne, Brisbane, Perth, and every major Australian city, homeowners with standard suburban blocks face the same challenge: they have more backyard than they use, but they can't subdivide and sell the excess land. Council minimum lot sizes, frontage requirements, and infrastructure charges make subdivision impractical or impossible for the majority of residential properties in Australia.
Buy My Backyard was created to solve exactly this problem. We pay you a one-off lump sum, up front, for a registered 99-year lease over the unused portion of your backyard. We then fund, design, approve, build and manage a secondary dwelling on that portion at our cost — turning land that was earning nothing into cash in your hands, without subdivision, without selling, and without you needing to navigate the process alone.
Each Australian state and territory has its own legislative framework governing secondary dwellings (granny flats). In New South Wales, the State Environmental Planning Policy (SEPP) Housing 2021 provides for complying development approval of secondary dwellings on lots of 450sqm or more in certain zones. In Victoria, the Planning and Environment Act and VicSmart provisions allow for secondary dwellings in most residential zones. Queensland's Planning Act 2016 similarly provides a clear pathway for secondary dwelling development in residential zones.
Buy My Backyard assesses each property against the current planning controls in its specific local government area — not generalised state-wide rules. This means we can give you an accurate qualification assessment for your specific suburb and council, not a generic answer based on state averages.
A 99-year land lease is a formal, legally documented agreement between a landowner and a lessee. The lessee leases a defined portion of the landowner's land for a period of up to 99 years. The landowner retains full title throughout — the arrangement does not transfer ownership of any part of the land. Under the Buy My Backyard model, we pay the landowner once, as a lump sum up front, for the full 99-year term — there are no ongoing payments.
In the context of the Buy My Backyard programme, the 99-year lease covers the portion of your backyard where the secondary dwelling is built. Buy My Backyard funds, builds, owns and manages the secondary dwelling on that portion for the lease term, finds the tenants and keeps the rent. You receive the lump sum — paid once and yours outright. Your property title is unchanged, and you keep ownership of your land and your home.
Find out if your property qualifies — free →