Renovation for starters

Hey Glenn,
I subscribe to Australian Property Investor and it’s fantastic, also, as well as Steve’s course, I have done Peter Spann’s course (good course) and he did a large chunk on renos; and Stuart O’Neil from Guerrilla Real Estate has a renovation kit.
Make sure you get a building and pest inspection -these guys are good for contacts for tradesmen.
Good luck
Cookie

i thought that renovation for capital gain of more than what you spent on it and flicking it as soon as it’s done pretty much relies on you being in a rising market. if the market is heading south or flattening out you might not make what you spent on the property let alone what you hoped to make for your time.

one of the pieces of advice people give you when renovating is ‘have a budget and stick to it’. however there are always things that happen or that you discover along the way that you have to deal with, that you didn’t predict, even if you are experienced and had a builder’s report. even if you did stick to budget you might find you went over with time, which in my book equates to going over budget too.

i’m a great believer in polishing the floorboards as the cheapest most beautiful and hard-wearing flooring, if you have boards underneath. it quoted cheaper than the nastiest vinyl or carpet – and so i had it done right through the house,
(2 houses actually) – even into the kitchen and bathroom. i’m not saying it’s the best option for wear and looks, just that i think it’s the best option for wear and looks for the price.

i think the best thing you can do to a property for less than a grand is to paint it. the more prep you do the better the job.

we’ve learned a lot about painting after doing two, and we’re in the future going to stay away from low-sheen like you’d typically use on walls and ceilings, and gloss enamel like we used to do cupboards, bathrooms and doors and window frames in. the gloss is a nightmare because you have to let it dry for so long and then sand between coats, and although it gives a great finish and you’d use it in your own home, i’d advise forget it for a rental property.

ditto low sheen. although it looks great it marks too easily. use it in your own home, yeah fine, but in a rental property use an acrylic wipeable paint, which cleans up with water. we used a semi gloss now for all the doors, window frames, and even the ceiling. we did use low sheen last time on the ceiling but we’re not going to next time….oh my BF is yelling over my shoulder ‘you wanna use wipeable paint!’ as i’m writing this….

another thing we learned was to take all the clips, door handles, catches off , unscrew powerpoints etc with a power-tool before painting. saves so much time rather than cutting in or masking.
‘use a small roller for the window frames rather than a paintbrush’, my BF is interjecting ‘i’d highly recommend using the same colour on the walls and the ceiling, say an off white, and then do a feature wall to make the place a bit more alive. it’s another thing that saves time. then all you have to cut in is the feature wall.’

i also think stay away from ‘grey’ paint, it looks totally horrible
and gives a bad vibe.

here he comes again…ok my BF is now saying ‘ you also need to put an undercoat sealer on before you paint, especially if you bogged and sanded. otherwise the bog will shine through,’

……’ tint the undercoat in the colour your top coat is going to be and then you have to do less coats. you can generally say that you need one undercoat and two coats on top. that’s barely enough but you might get away with it. doors and archetraving need three coats especially if you use the roller.’

oh he’s on a roll….

‘you have to clean all the grease off the wall and the ceilings and use light sandpaper to go over everything before you start. this has to be done more properly if painting over gloss, otherwise the paint will just fall off. waterbased paints dry quicker, aren’t as durable though, but far less grief if you spill it – it’s worth it.’

he also says you should paint from top to bottom.

one more thing is that we’ve painted over wallpaper. technically it’s a nono and some would say super-dodgy, but we made it work. it depends on the standard of your future renting clientele but if it’s ripped off in places you just bog over it and sand back, you hardly notice when it’s painted. if you have bubbling wallpaper just make a cut with a stanley knife and squeeze some glue in and paste it down.

really you have to do a time/money study and figure out if it’s worth it to do the alternative which is to steam off the wallpaper and re-paper, or re-plaster. if it will make any financial difference to your tenant. if it’s supposed to be an immaculate job for future capital gain of just to tidy the place up and make it look clean and bright. we did the latter because we weren’t doing renovations in a capital gain place and it was an old house. really the houses we were renovating weren’t worth putting in a brand new kitchen (for example) or steaming wallpaper off and replastering (for example) but (for example) it was worth replacing just the kitchen bench and taps and painting the cupboards.

blah blah blah
i love it

my BF is saying ‘don’t tell them about painting over the wallpaper baby’ and of course you wouldn’t do it in most houses, but my disclaimer is that these were 16K and 19k houses and they were at what i call the ‘bottom of the bottom of the market’ and as such i think it was fine to do that.

cheers-
mini

Hi Guys
For you reno wannabes there might be some interesting info on this site.

http://www.woodworkforums.ubeaut.com.au

Regards

good stuff fatboy!!!

yeh – i vote for the seminar. Go the reno kings. i’m thinking of going to it myself.

Glenn

I say go for the seminar. You never know what you might learn in regards to securing that first property as well as how to do all the renos! Learn from the experts – they’ve already made a lot of mistakes, and it will save you a lot of time and money to take theirs onboard.

Cheers
Mel

Option 2. Knowledge is everything. If the seminars save you their price then its already break even.

Learning from others mistakes is much cheaper.

Although I do agree with scamp, 6k is a bit much.

Josh

quote:

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Thanks for the story Fatboy, ill print this one for my folder!

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No worries Glenn – when you get that elusive first reno let me know and i’ll let you know who my kitchen guy is – he’s a legend !! []

Cheers,
Paul…

“The only thing you get from looking backwards is a sore neck…”

Hi Glen,
Be careful and make sure you do the maths before buying and renovating. I have had friends loos big time by forgeting % costs while vacant. Alwats have plenty in reserve (cash)
If you are buying to flip, add all costs ie. int charges (holding costs), your time, advert, sales comm’s, delays in the time for council approval etc.
Good luck and stay focused.[]
Don’t listen to all the people who have never done it, talk to people that have… and won!
Cheers
Property[8][8][8]