How to assess a property

Choosing the right property isn’t about market trends — it’s about securing a site that can actually sustain you in an uncertain future.

This 28-page chapter delivers hard-won property assessment wisdom covering:

• Location intelligence: How to read neighborhood patterns — access to transport, edge-land resources, community potential — and prioritise what the market still undervalues.
  
• Solar access & microclimate: Quick on-site methods for evaluating sun sectors, shadow risks, and building orientation to determine a property’s long-term productivity and thermal performance.
  
• Street layout & landform: Why cul-de-sacs, wide verges, corner blocks, and rear lanes can dramatically expand growing space, social opportunity, and retrofit options.
  
• Disaster resilience: Practical evaluation of bushfire (wildfire) sectors, slope, vegetation, wind exposure, and flood behavior — and how to judge whether a property is defendable or relocatable.
  
• Service dependence: How to assess future vulnerabilities in power, water, waste, and communications — and reduce reliance on fragile central systems without abandoning them.
  

Real examples from Melliodora, Abdallah House, Ecoburbia and Blue Mountains retrofits show how well-chosen properties become resilient, productive hubs — while poor choices lock households into ongoing risk and dependency.