AMAV VICDOC Winter 2024 - Magazine - Page 79
start with a brief look at the
L et’s
mechanics of sunlight. As a southern
hemisphere land, the sun sits in the
north of the Australian sky, travelling an
arc each day from the east at sunrise to
the west at sunset. Consequently, northfacing rooms receive more unshaded
light over the day than their southfacing counterparts. This advantage is
accentuated on winter days due to the
sun’s lower trajectory in those months,
leaving many south-facing locations in
shade much of the time.
Estate agents’ sales literature will
rave about properties with north-facing
gardens because experience shows that
buyers gravitate towards a well-lit outside
area and adjoining entertainment rooms.
In some respects, the ‘north-facing garden’
has become short-hand for an ideally
sunlit property. The reality is more
complex than that.
There are some rooms where good
sunlight is more important than others —
bathrooms for instance. Having a shave in
a sunlit bathroom is a breeze compared to
using artificial light, and no doubt it is the
same for women when applying makeup.
In contrast, no one worries about a
dark loo! As well as light, the sun also
brings heat. In winter and spring,
sunlight streaming through a window
can be delightfully warming. But on a hot
summer’s day, a sunlit room can feel as
hot as a glass house. Typically, the sun’s
heat is most intense and persistent in the
afternoon and even well into the evening
during the longest days of the year.
Rooms with north-west facing rooms
can swelter in these conditions.
Often you want light without heat,
such as in bedrooms and living spaces.
You certainly do not want western light
upon a wall where artwork hangs as
the hot, bright, sustained heat and light
denigrates canvasses over time.
So, when assessing a property,
investors (and particularly home buyers,
for that matter) will want to consider the
floor plan and look at the orientation of
various rooms, rather than just the aspect
of the garden or the front of the property.
Saying all that, if a property receives a
reasonable amount of light over the course
of a cloudless day — be it northern, easterly,
or westerly light — don’t reject it because
the aspect isn’t perfect.
Little or no sunlight can be grounds for
rejecting a property for both investment
and home-buying purposes and can mark
down the value of a property by several
tens of thousands of dollars. The issue
is more prevalent with apartments and
especially high-density apartments in
high-rise blocks.
Rejecting a property because it is gloomy
is often an open-and-shut case. As soon as
you walk into the property it is clear that
the place is beyond redemption.
Occasionally, there is a property where
the problem can be remediated. Options
include installing more windows and
skylights, replacing solid wooden doors
with glass-filled ones, hanging mirrors to
reflect light into dark corners and using
pale colours for walls and floors. Note that
the options are usually far more limited in
an apartment than in a house.
Sadly, in practice, it is rare to find a
truly gloomy property where remediation
sufficiently improves the light quality and
does it within a reasonable enough budget
to justify the expense.
In today’s market, some buyers may be
tempted to compromise on ‘light’ to secure
a well-located property at what looks like
good value.
That is invariably a mistake. The property
may appear cheap, but it will underperform.
So, if on first inspection your gut tells you a
property is too gloomy, trust your instincts
and move on.
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