Forum Replies Created
I always used http://www.depreciator.com.au/ and I'm very happy with them.
They do work all around Australia – they do trips to different part of a country few times a year.
I personally prefer someone to see my property when doing a scheduleIf your reno is in or near the major city – 5K budget should be very reasonably, if you don’t go too fancy. I would still get profs to do most of work.
Keep your design very simple and clean – this way even simple white tile design with a trim looks more sophisticated. Moving plumbing around does add cost.
You can easily remove old tiles. I personally wouldn’t take the bath itself of by myself – I’m not sure I can disconnect it correctly and I can’t carry it out anyway. I can tile walls – but for interstate my reno I hire someone to do it. I then do all finishing work, like hanging a mirror, putting toilet roll, towel holders. And then I do painting.
I tend to hire someone to do most of work in the bathroom. But this is because my renos were a complete revamp and all interstate. There always so much less qualify work I can easily do in other parts of a house.
Check with your traders the price they will pay for material – for tiles, appliances, etc. Then go to the auction and buy everything that you can get chipper.
And one more tip – Don’t buy bath upfront – you might find that the old one is in much better shape then you thought and you can just restore it and have a character feature. In my last two renos I found that bath actually was a claw bath that someone has built a frame around! My renos were in outback mining towns, so restoring them was out of question (eh… Broke my hart…).
If you want to render your house you might want to check a render paint from Dulux.
I haven’t use it yet, but from materials in their show room it looks very promising. It some kind of texture paint designed to give a smooth rendered-looking finish in 2 coats. It might be much chipper then ret someone to render the house.
You can check it in any Dulux display centre or shop.
Good luck with your reno.
Make sure that you got permission from your body corporate to put floor boards.
They might require you to put additional acoustic mats.I just finished complete bathroom re-wamp. It did cost me 12K plus GST. But this is in remote mining town with labour shortage and building boom, so the price is quite inflated.
We had to re-do everything completely – strip all walls, ceilings, remove floor, even change stamp under the bathroom. We put in completely new plumbing and electrical work, put new floor and walls, ceilings and all fittings – shower bath, vanity, toilet, small laundry sink and plumbing for washing machine, new tiling, door and window frame…
We used very simple fittings and tile, but it looks good and tidy.
You can check the photos at:
http://www.facebook.com/album.php?aid=30444&l=b1bb6&id=650427872
I think is you want to do reno in major city and can keep floors and walls – you can get done something similar in 10K.
Hope this helps
If you want to do it yourself – allow a bit more for materials. I would say 1K will be safe (you will most likely get it chipper, but better to be safe, as something will most certainly go wrong in other place)
If you want to use professional painting cost in your negotiation – the general guide is:
- Walls and ceilings – allow $300 plus GST per room or area. For ex. 3 bedroom, bathroom, laundry, corridor, lounge, kitchen – totals 8 room x $300 each is about $2,400 plus GST. Some room are smaller and some are bigger. But they will balance each other.
- Doors and door frames – $120 each plus GST
- Windows – $80 each plus GST
- If you have extra preparations – like repair water damage, cracks – allow up o 10% extra.
I'm trying to do regional interstate reno at the moment too. If you dealing with a country – it’s a sharp contrast with Sydney in communication standards! One thing I can tell you – forget about email! Fax is the best you can hope for. You will be lucky to get mobile connection occasionally. But your phone conversation wouldn’t have much of a value. You really need to talk to people face-to-face. I don’t really see anymore how I can complete the project without being there. My property is in booming town and getting traders is damn hard. There is so much new development – they only want to do new projects and they can choose what to do. I was waiting for 6 month to get a quote for bathroom! And I haven’t got it yet!The property was tenanted as PC+, so I didn’t worry much. But the tenant got bed and I evicted him. Now I’m really on the hurry and I just can’t get traders! I’m a trader myself and will go and do a big part of the work myself. But I need a builder, plumber and electric. I lost hope to get gyprocker/carpenter down there so I’m currently negotiating with traders in Sydney to go here and to do the work – I’ll have to pay premium price, plus flight, accommodation and meals. But at least I’ll get the work done.
I actually stoped using spray for vermiculate ceilings. You need to put 5-6 coats of paint and there still all this little gaps in the structure that look dark on fresh paint. It also takes a lo-o-o-ot of paint. The amount of additional weight from the new paint that goes on those old ceilings could be really disturbing. I found that the gentle texture paint carefully rolled on gives much better results.
If it helps to form an opinion…
I have been at one of seminars were Margaret was a co-speaker a couple of years ago.. She seems to be a very-very nice person and a really great speaker. I rushed immediately to bay few more of her books!
But her business has changed over years – she use to have CF+ property listings, juts like a real estate agent and now it’s more of financial planning… I haven’t seen anything myself that would get me really interested at this stage.
Hi,
Does anyone know the good accountant in Sydney?
Someone why would be conficent with CF+, development and trusts…Thanks
Thanks Anthony,
That was really encouraging.
Makes a lot of sense.I’ll investigate the small apartments and I’m also looking today at share housing possibilities.
If there‘s something on the market – I’ll find it!Cheers
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comI do really simple kitchen reno:
– Repaint in the warm of white shade (spray panting!)
– put in modern stainless steel handles (don’t save on this one!)
– put new Ikea bench top (cost something like $90 for 2m) just chose the think ones – them look rich! Once we even glued the new bench on top of the old thin plywood one.
– I did painted few times tiles in white with those special Knights paintAnd it’s done!
You would not believe the difference it makes!!!![grad]
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comTell me about!!!
I’m in the same situation [puke] [puke] [puke]I found the property on 2300sqm, 100m long site in quite cul-de-sac with TWO WATERFRONTS!!!
One side is just across the narrow street and meters away from the beautiful deep water crick and other actually ending at the lake and even has a little private jetty!!! Could you believe THIS!!!
And if this is not good enough – the site has 3bd house that hasn’t been painted for 15 years and was rented all this time. But structurally really sound!!!!
And RE believes, very wrongly that the building should be demolished (and I’m an architect – I know what I say)
AND I CAN’T SUBDIVIDE IT!!!!! [grrr]
Lot is too narrow to subdivide for me and it’s zoned 2a – no torence title allowed.
Neighbouring lots are also too narrow and so I can’t buy any land of them.If I buy two lots I can in theory subdivide them on two attached housing lots and one battle-axe lot. But this mean I’ll have to demolish and rebuilt two perfectly fine buildings. After selling lots (or even re-building) I’ll be in about 100K-200K loss
Oh, it breaks my hart!!!!! [glum2]Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comIs it the first property you are buying?
You obviously are a bit stressed about settlement. If this worries you so much – just sort out what the worth case scenario is, make sure you can afford it and try to protected yourself from possible problems as much as you can. At least you will sleep better at night.
• Develop your plan B, and may be even plan C mortgage (if it really doesn’t let you sleep at night). Just ask your mortgage broker to get you another pre-approvals on mortgage. It wouldn’t cost you nothing. At least you will know that if you have to you can quickly settle with another lender
• When you exchange the contract ask your solicitor to negotiate the interest fees on late settlement (it will be mentioned in the sale contract) I don’t know if this is the industry standards, but for every property I bought it was initially 14% and we asked a vendor’s solicitor for reduce it to 9% and it always was approved.
• And can’t emphasise enough – make sure you have a good solicitor and mortgage broker (references!!!).
I understand after the auction the settlement process is the same as with normal sale – there will exchange the contracts and there will be few weeks before you settle. It’s the time for solicitors and you mortgage broker to prepare all legal work and a loan.
If something goes not look right with your lender – they should see it and they will fix it before settlement (make sure you have a right team).
I don’t think you would lose a deposit unless you decide not to go with the purchase at all, but definitely not if you are late with the settlement. But the worth case scenario if you settle later for any reason – you will be entitled to pay interest on the outstanding amount to the vendor until you find another lender.
If this worries you so much, or if you have any problems – shoot me an email, I’ll give you contacts for my solicitor and mortgage broker. They both are really good. With solicitor – I don’t have to pay any fees if for some reason I don’t settle.And the broker is really quick and does most of work over internet and always was able to get me the higher then overage discounts on mortgage even on the weirdest and most unstandard properties.
Good luck with the auction!
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comSo are you guys actually his clients?
Or you just know someone who worked with them?
No offence on Chad, really…
I know nothing about him. I just notices he replies to every post about US. So if I would consider using his servic will be good to hear from other client.Anyone else had experience with the companies?
[fez]Thanks,
It was the great answer.
The problem I’m facing right now is that banks do not want to give load for storage facilities. The best deal I got is with Bank West and it’s only for 60% loan. Two more lenders give 50%, but this is it.
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comYou can always post on this forum all your questions.
The replies usually are fantastic!I have not reached the star’s yet, but I’ve been through a lot in property investment.
I invested in CF+ houses in regional areas, and units and blocks of units in metropolitan. I also did renos and my former career was in Architecture and Urban Design. Never did wraps.If you have any questions in this field – will be happy to help you.
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comI once owned a 85 years old property.
It was the cutest house. But maintenance cost was greater then I expected – mostly because of old wire, conditioner, and leak near conditioner.Also the insurance company was a bit reluctant with my application. They had some king of age limit in their policy – so check this before signing anything.
Otherwise it was as any other property
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.comConsider for yourselves what is your priority – your current lifestyle (leaving in your PPOR) or long term investment. And then act upon your decision.
Personally I am trying to buy as many as possible CF+ properties.
And I prefer to leave on rent for now, so I can invest more money at today’s market.
Also occasionally selling one property for the profit actually helps to increase borrowing capacity.But decide for yourselves
Cheers
Lesia
[evo]
http://www.vmstreamline.com
