Hey Salla,

If you do a search under flooring or floors you will come up with a number of hits with respect to types of flooring.

Choices are basically carpet, timber (floating or direct stick to concrete), laminate, tiles or lino. For a house, you can probably rule out tiles, and the other choices will be dependant on how much you want to spend, what type of substrate you have (concrete or timber joists), where you are located and what look you are after.

I have just finished my place with a laminate which is certainly cheap and is really hard wearing, but the overall finish is not as good as real timber. Still looks pretty good though. Overall cost, $1800 for 120 m2 and a full weekend of pulling up carpet and putting down laminate.

Hope this has helped.

Jan

Hey Candy,

I bought my first property over here in WA about 12 months ago and was surprised by what my RE agent told me during our final inspection prior to settlement. He said that all fixtures and fittings must be fit for purpose and in working order. In our case one of the hotplates was not working and promptly organised for the owner to have it fixed. He said it part of WA RE law.

I found this surprising as I always thought it was buyer beware and that even though you have an out, its not worth losing the deposit over usually.

Any other WA-ites have any other experience as I may found the other moral RE in Perth!

Have to agree with Foundation there. I have an Engineering degree and when I was working on site as the Site Manager, my Plastering Supervisor was on twice than me with no education at all. Now about 6 years down the track, I am getting close to what he was on at the time.

The point however, is that I did my degree for reasons other than financial. As for HECS and how to get around it, get over it. Like any other debt, you take it on knowing you will have to pay it back sooner or later and hopefully you got something valuable from the experience.

Hey mcubed,

I don’t think you have to really wait till the market settles down, just wait until you know how to get what you want. All above has said, do the legwork and build your knowledge which is a real pain, I know, however the key word is risk. Shares can be considered risky to some for the reason that the market can be volatile, however, entry wise, costs can be quite low with your exposure limited to what you put in. You cna usually always sell your shares if the price drops albeit with copping a loss. Property is different in that your entry cost is the deposit you put down, however you are liable for the whole amount. Property tends to be less volatile, however it takes longer to get out and losses can be higher. Comes back to this risk in that if you have knowledge and current info, you can minimise that risk. That goes for shares or property.

I have mentioned in other threads that ASX do online courses in shares / options / warrants etc which are pretty good, and scrolling through heaps of the threads in this site will give some good insight into property.

good luck and happy hunting!!

Good point Dan, the little halogen lights can be bought for around $15 each including transformers and really look great when you have a few in select locations. Good for highlighting features as well. Cheap and very effective!!

As Sharon rightly points out, if you do a lot yourself, the costs come down dramatically as a big component of any work is labour. For example, to paint your house, paint may cost say $200 but with labour, could be $1000. Kitchen and Bathroom prices vary depending on what you do and type of finishes. Costs obviously reduce if you are doing aesthetic changes only and not moving positions of bath, toilet, sink etc.

As for landscaping, how long is a piece if string? Are there retaining walls involved, how big is the area to be landscaped, are you putting in grass, only mulching and a few small plants? You could spend anywhere from $100 to $30,000 depending on the scope of work!

A good source of info is Rawlinsons which has costs of materials labour square metre rates etc for all the different states. Bring them out every year but the best would be quotes!

Ezy made a good point that changing layouts can dramatically change the appearance and feel of a place.

Knocking out walls is favourite past time of mine and like the idea of smarter layouts. As Ezy mentioned, it can get expensive, particularly when kitchens are involved and sometimes not for the faint of heart but the results usually are worth it!

If knocking out walls is not for you then an alternative maybe just to take out smaller sections of the wall at about eye level to provide the visual open feel without the hassel of taking out a whole wall. Relatively easy to do in stud walls, not as easy in brick walls. I saw this on the weekend at a friends house and looked pretty cool, and you do see it a lot in new kit houses. Usually works well between dining and lounge rooms or living areas. Just a thought!