R-Codes Reform: Should You Sell, Hold or Develop Before It Lands?

If your block is one of the roughly 50,000 that would flip to subdividable under the announced R-Codes reform, you now own a timing question. Sell into the announcement? Hold until gazettal? Develop under current rules and ignore the noise? There is no universal answer, but there is a numbers-first way to think about it.

The three positions

Sell into the announcement. Markets price expectations early. Owners who sell during consultation capture some reform value without reform risk: if the proposal is watered down (as the medium density code was between draft and gazettal), early sellers did well. The cost: if it gazettes as announced, the buyer captures the confirmed uplift. Selling suits owners who wanted out anyway and prefer certainty over the last dollar.

Hold through gazettal. The patient position. If the reform lands as announced, the block reprices on law rather than speculation. The risks are real though: the proposal can change, the timeline can slip past mid-2027, and holding has carrying costs. Holding suits owners with no pressure to act and a genuine view on their suburb’s demand for smaller lots.

Develop under current rules. Sometimes forgotten in the reform excitement: many blocks already support development today, and a project started now completes into a market where the reform may be adding buyer interest in exactly your product. If your block works under current rules, the reform is upside, not the plan.

The arithmetic that decides it

Whichever way you lean, the same five numbers decide whether the lean is right: what your block yields under current rules; what it would yield under the reform as announced; what the pathways cost to execute (site works, subdivision, build, all of it); what the end products sell or rent for in your suburb; and what holding costs you between now and each decision point.

The first three are checkable today. Our free R-Code check computes current yield, shows the reform comparison where it applies (clearly labelled as proposed, not law), and puts indicative cost ranges from live Perth builder pricing against each pathway. The last two need suburb evidence: comparable sales and rental appraisals, which is verification work rather than guesswork.

Where independent advice earns its keep

Every builder in Perth will happily assess your reform-window block for free, and their answer will reliably involve building with them. Agents will assess it free too, and the answer will involve selling now. We are an advisory: we work for you, and the honest answer is allowed to be “sell it”, “hold it”, or “this block is not what the headlines promised”. That independence is the whole point of running the numbers before the commitment.

If your block is in the window, a feasibility puts real figures under all three positions: verified yield, tendered-quality cost ranges, suburb evidence, and holding cost against the reform timeline, so the decision is yours to make on facts.

Frequently asked questions

Could the reform be scrapped entirely? Yes. It is an announcement heading into consultation. WA has revised density reforms before gazettal before.

Will waiting definitely make my block worth more? No. It may, if the reform gazettes as announced and demand for small lots holds in your suburb. Both are assumptions until they are facts.

Can I start subdivision now and complete under the new rules? Applications are assessed under the rules in force when determined, and transition arrangements vary by reform. This is exactly the kind of question a feasibility scopes properly for your timing.

What does a feasibility cost compared to getting this wrong? A feasibility is a fixed, disclosed fee. Mispricing a development-window block, in either direction, is typically a five-to-six-figure error.