Have no idea about pro costings these days. Bedrooms are about as DIY as you can get. Measure your wall area go to a paint supplier (Bunnings) and tell the what you've got and they'll recommend something suitable and quantities. Drop sheets are as cheap as chips and some masking tape (blue variety)  suitable rollers and long handle, paint tray and a few roller cartridges and Bob's your uncle. 3 rooms are a days work for one person even an amateur.

Make sure your paint is water based. Keep your colors light and airy for an impression of space. 

If your walls a pretty grubby wash them down with sugar soap. Don't use sponges. Cotton rags are best.

You can't be loose with figures when you're doing projects. They require detailed planning and a best case worst case analysis. You always plan everything around worst case and hope your project turns out closer to best case.

In other words plan for the worst hope for the best.

These will be either done as a home or an investment. If its a home then costing are not as important. If its an investment costings are everything. You also need to understand that how you approach this will impact on any future dreams of property investing. You can screw yourself if you get sloppy and take the I want a home approach but have aspirations to invest later by leveraging off this project.

Then build a home and forget about being a property developer because you can't survive let alone succeed with that approach.

You have many different markets (and segments)

global

national

regional/state

city

towns

suburb

rural

urban

economic base (manufacturing, services etc)

affluent

middle class

working class

state dependent

ethnic

house

unit

gated

attached

detached

and so it goes. There is no magic formula and there are no books on how pick a given time in a cycle. It's a collection of knowledge and experience from a wide range of sources. Your basically looking for trends in your particular market segment in a wider context and trying to literally guess which way and by how much things will change over time. It's an art rather than a science that can't simply be learnt from a book

Derek you have one of the more professionally put together net presence out there. Certainly in the top 10%. It is something I would expect from a professionally run entity such as yours. Anything less would suggest questionable skills and knowledge.

The problem from a marketing point of view is they can be seen as somewhat pristine and sterile. This is where blogs and FB have their uses. If customers like what they see the next stage in CRM is to bring the customer from arms length to within arms length and start to make them feel like one of the gang. What I call informalising the relationship. Trying to do both in one place is literally impossible and can confuse the message.

You can think of it like this; the website is your official office where formal and initial meetings take place. FB is like the coffee shop down the road and blogs are informative get togethers at the local pub. You have to remember that FB is a social (networking) medium not really an advertising medium.

The effective way to use FB is to first build content then work at interconnecting with like FB/bloggers in your area of business. The networking and interlinking is where the leverage takes place. Without it your just another flyer on a lamp post somewhere.

While I'm here your approach to blogging needs a rethink. Blogs are thrown on websites now as a matter of course but virtually as an after thought. I would suggest moving yours offsite with a complete new URL. Revamp the look away from sterile and liven it up with a bit of informality, personal opinion etc. Leave the existing page as Media, news release, white papers etc.

I would look at integrating with other bloggers in your space but with differing skill sets (legal, brokerage, planning, architectural, engineering etc) and creating a MAB (multi author blog).

You're now starting to build a network of your own which leverages your primary content/message with greater exposure and inherent SEO multipliers as well (backlinking etc)

The basic message is to make each component, page, website etc, work together rather than treat them as independent pieces that largely function in isolation, are disjointed in some way or are compiled in such a way as to detract from the whole.

Build your presence so that it's seamless and holistic.

No rubbish MSM opinion pieces from the small town Clark Kent reporter OK.

I don't dispute prices have risen nor that there is the appearance of resurgent prosperity.

And here in lies the problem or part of it anyway. Your first wave in were individual investors, then larger commercial outfits often driving a group investment approach. In recent times we've seen the big guys like hedge funds and corporates jump on the bandwagon. There is little or no organic growth in property markets. When the hot money slows or is withdrawn from the market it will simply crash again. The few indigenous buyers will not be able to support the market and will be crushed.

60% of investors are as dumb as chooks and the next 30% have a vague idea what they're doing but aren't exactly rocket scientists. Less than 10% have the smarts to make investing work for them.

I'm an old dog remember. Been there done that got the T-shirt.

Go back and read/look at the graphs. There isn't one economic fundamental that I can find that supports the contention the US economy is improving.

Spain is an example of what things look like when they loose control. An inevitability for the US at this point. The US has an unfunded liability problem that along with continuing mounting debt will crush its economy over the next few decades.

All you're seeing is the result of people and capital fleeing one bankrupt state to restart in another. The US economic landscape is becoming a patchwork of small islands and large deserts.

You'll find those in the fiction section of the government book store.

You can't mix sentimentality with investing. It's fatal.. If you want a home you take a hit to the pocket in exchange for a warm fuzzy. You want an investment then the figures either stack up or they don't. 

As an investment proposition this is definitely a walker. Actually it's a runner. I'd run from this deal as fast as my little ol' legs would carry me.