When you start collecting quotes, one phrase comes up again and again: turnkey. A turnkey granny flat is meant to be ready to live in the day you get the keys, while a base build covers the home itself and leaves some of the surrounding work to you. The trouble is that not every builder draws the line in the same place, which makes quotes hard to compare.
This guide explains exactly what turnkey usually includes, what a base build leaves out, and the gotchas that catch people out. After more than 30 years building modular and transportable homes across NSW, we have seen where budgets go sideways, and it is almost always in the gap between the two.
A base build is the home itself: the structure, the roof, external walls, and a standard internal fit-out with a kitchen, bathroom, flooring and fittings to a set spec. As a guide for 2026, a base one or two-bedroom build in Sydney sits around $110,000 to $150,000.
What a base price often does not include is everything needed to actually connect and finish the home on your particular block. That is the part where blocks differ wildly, so builders frequently leave it out of the headline figure to keep the number clean.
Turnkey is meant to mean ready to move in, with the site work and connections rolled into the price. A genuine turnkey quote should cover the home plus the work around it, so you are not hit with extras after you have signed.
That typically means items like these on top of the build:
You can see how these stages fit together on our our process page. The point of turnkey is one clear price for a finished home, not a build price you then have to top up.
Here is where people get caught. A quote can look cheap because it is a base price dressed up to feel complete. The gaps usually hide in the site costs, and in Sydney those can be significant.
The two biggest variables are sandstone or rock close to the surface, and how far your services have to run to reach the sewer. A quote that assumes an easy, flat, well serviced block will not hold up on a rocky or sloping one. Other common exclusions are landscaping, fencing, driveways, and sometimes even the cost of getting power and water properly connected.
Always ask what is assumed about your site. A fixed quote based on an actual site assessment is worth far more than a low headline number with a list of exclusions in the fine print.
To compare quotes on an even footing, get every builder to price the same scope. A few questions cut through the confusion:
Once every quote answers those, you can compare apples with apples. Our granny flat cost guide for NSW lays out the typical figures so you can sense-check what you are quoted.
Whichever option you choose, approval still has to happen. Under the NSW Housing SEPP 2021, the maximum internal floor area is 60 square metres, and blocks of 450 square metres or more in a residential zone can usually use the Complying Development Certificate pathway, assessed by a private certifier in about 10 to 20 business days. A good turnkey quote folds certification into the price. See how granny flat approval works in NSW for the detail.
A modular granny flat is built in our factory in about 8 weeks, then transported and installed on site in about 2 days. That controlled build removes a lot of the guesswork that causes variations, which makes a fixed turnkey price genuinely fixed. The main remaining variable is your site, and a proper assessment handles that up front. Browse our range of modular homes to see the designs.
The headline figure is higher because it includes more, but it is usually not more expensive overall. A base price plus the site costs you add yourself often lands in a similar place, just with more surprises along the way.
Service connections and site preparation. In Sydney, rock and long service runs are the two big multipliers, so a quote that underestimates them can blow out fast.
Ask for a fixed price based on a real site assessment, and get every builder to price the same scope. That way the cheapest number is genuinely the cheapest, not just the most stripped back.
We would rather give you one honest number than a low figure with surprises later. Let us assess your block and price the full scope so you know exactly what you are getting. Explore our modular granny flats and studios, then contact us for a fixed quote on your Sydney property.
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