My Tip’s for fixing up a problem property..feel free to add any tips (I’d welcome them!!)..
Estimate your costs..
-Check out the structure of the property, look for cracks, discolouration etc, look at the roof, air-conditioning electrical fixtures and plumbing (turn ‘everything’ on and off, flush the toilets..see if there are any problems) look at the lay of the land (is it flat , running back, forward?) research the area and look at other properties, look for ideas.
Do it yourself or hire someone to do it..
-Work out the time as opposed to cost value here.
Check out the prices
-sometimes Bunnings is the cheapest, sometimes not; shop around..i walked across the road to Coles once and picked up an item much cheaper.
Speak to your local Council
– I had a friend who lost his patio in the storms in Perth recently, he’s only just found out that insurance wont cover his ‘non-approved’ patio that did a “Roof – Flipâ€on him.
You have to plan, project, and budget your purchase costs, supplies, labour, holding costs, and marketing and plan for the worst case scenarios..
It takes time and money to fix up a property. If any book says you can do this part time with at low costs and make a squillion- Don’t believe it..
REDWING
“Money is a currency, like electricity and it requires momentum to make it Effective”
Count The Currency With This Online Positive Cashflow CalculatorGreat Post!
– Don’t guess what tenants and buyers want. Ask! Plan project around the yield and capital maximising improvements.
-Don’t over capitalize
-Everything is negotiable and negotiate with a smile.
-Keep a clean, safe and organised project. You don’t want to see a plumber or electrician with a broom in their hands.
-Choose finishes and fittings that meet your market. View as many similar priced homes and match or exceed that visual.
-Pay your people on time – you will want repeat business and build good relationships.
-Keep accurate records and monitor your budget
-Get access during the settlement period for estimates and selected repairs.
– Be very careful about colour in the project.
-If your own work will not exceed the standard of the pros pay someone to do it. The last thing you want is an obvious DIY job. Don’t kid yourself because you will be decreasing the value of the home if your don’t meet the right standard.
-Meet the valuers on site if possible. Listen to every word.
-Be aware of the impact of weather on your time budget.
and have lots of fun!!!
Cheers
if you lift the old vynal floor and find it is glued to the floor, try pulling off as much as you can and then use a wallpaper removing steaming machine (hire for approx $35) to remove the glue from the floor boards.
Worked for me!
Use a colour consultant from one of the big suppliers i.e. Bristol in Melbourne (cost $75 plus discount off the paints)
hrm
I like the colour consultant idea, hmacay!
If it is your first fixer-upper project, start small.
I think it is important to choose a property that is very overseeable- budgetwise and timewise, with a safety-chusion all around it.
In your enthusiasm it is very easy to take on too much too soon.
Work out the budget room-by-room. Tradesman by tradesman.One very important thing about organising tradesmen is to schedule them so that they do not ‘clash’ with each other.
It can be so [ohno][ohno2][thumbsdownanim if tradesmen arrive on the same day and are in each other’s way and have to wait for each other to finish! It will slow down everything and will cost you more.
And get the materials to the site in time!It is not easy to estimate costs of big projects. Save the more ambitious projects until you are confident enough.
Especially in this market, take into account the time necessary to sell as well to allow for interest payments on the loan. And be realistic about the selling price it this market.
It was all so easy to make a good profit during the boom- but realistically, much harder to make a profit by doing fixer-uppers right now!
Celivia
Make sure you do a highly DETAILED costing BEFORE you start a project. Its when all the little ‘unexpected’ costs add up that your prject can go waaaayy over budget and turn from highly profitable to no profit at all…. and cost you big money.
And on that note Vogue, add contingency! Some say double the time and budget although this is probably extreme, but certainly add some just in case!!
If you are doing the work yourself or employing different tradesmen to do the work rather than one builder, have a general plan of what you are trying to achieve. No point going in gung-ho on a heap of little projects only to find out they don’t look good together!
Lastly, as someone else mentioned, don’t overcapitalise. Bear in mind what the property is intended for. No point putting in Granite benchtops for an IP that just will not see the return!
cheers
Jan
If you consider your time extremely valuable, just pick up the phone and let everyone else do the work for you.
If you consider your time to be not so valuable, be a TA for most of your pro help with jobs you can’t do, and be busy yourself co-ordinating the materials / cleaning up and preparing the work site and if you have spare time on your hands, fill it up by enhancing the garden both front and back. This is how we approached reno’s for RIP’s in the early days and it worked fine.
We drew up a big A3 sheet and split the house up into different rooms, plus front and rear garden and had an itemised list for each room / area of all the different jobs needed to complete that room – along with timeframe and who was going to do it, along with estimated cost. Every time we sat down for a cuppa and something to scoff (that activity seemed to take up an enormous amount of time), we’d diligently pull out the sheet and with a great sense of satisfaction rule off with a yellow highlighter the completed tasks from the prior session. Kept you motivated during the hard slog, when it all seemed a bit overwhelming with no end in sight.
Oh, and one more thing, get the biggest person in the house to jump down on the bin contents just before the rubbish truck arrives so you can cram in a few more things. We made a game of this with the kids, they thought it hilarious with dad being Oscar the grouch. If you get cheeky, you can also set up prior arrangements with your neighbours to do the same with theirs if they have some spare capacity. We found skip bins to be relatively expensive.
Cheers,
Dazzling
“No point having a cake if you can’t eat it.”
Some good tip’s..thanks, keep em coming..
REDWING
“Money is a currency, like electricity and it requires momentum to make it Effective”
Count The Currency With This Online Positive Cashflow CalculatorNot sure if it’s been mentioned yet.
Don’t have tennants in the property because:
The work will take alot longer.
Daily clean ups will take extra time.
Limited storage space for tradies tools and materials.
A lot of wasted time doing “temporary fixers” just to keep the tennants happy.[cap]
hrm
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