Time for Renovating

Hi gpfstuff and all,

Our last reno we did ourselves. I rang the rental agent and asked for the phone numbers for the handyman, electrician and plumber they use. Then I got all them out to show them the work I needed doing. I did all the painting myself and hubby installed the kitchen (Bunnings flat pack) The tradies then got the keys off the agent everytime they had to go do something.

There were drawbacks with this as the plumber had to get another guy out after he broke his arm the guy didn't install the laundry trough right, and it wrecked the trough. (wont buy a flat pack laundry trough again)

Mostly it worked well, I left lists for the handy man and drove there once or twice a week and sometimes stayed the weekend. It was 2.5 hrs drive away from my house and I've got kids so it was long, and it took longer then I wanted it to.

There is plenty you can do of an evening, such as painting, replacing stuff like handles, or scrubbing putting flat pack together. Noisy stuff can be done during the day. 

Get a team around you who you can trust, pinching the agents tradies is usually good, as they do work for the agency all the time, and mostly have to do it without owner supervision.

Good luck, if you want to do something bad enough you can find a way!!

Cheers

D

Oh and one other thing – when people ask you what to get you for fathers day, christmas or your birthday – tell them BUNNINGS VOUCHERS! After our renos I knew almost everyone in bunnings on a first name basis!

i have done many long distance renos ( 10 hours drive away )
you need to build a great team of tradesman
knowing good real estate agents in the area also helps ( most country real estate agents go above and beyond the call of duty i have found )
and get a great cheap handyman in the area, my handyman charged me about $20 per hour and was a wealth of knowledge, could do almost anything and knew where to buy the cheapest materials

i put my handyman in charge of things and he loved it, he sent me photos all the time and took ownership

putting on a few cartons of beer for the team every week or 2 also went a very long way

I'm in Sydney. Close- yell if you need anything.

We want to buy reno sell soon as our portfolio is almost full (well where we want it). We only aim to do one a year to supplement our wage from our portfolio as we don't want to work for much longer.
If you love renos it's the way to go. If you don't it's best to pay someone else as if your hearts not in it it will show. This is especially important if you are selling (as opposed to buy reno hold.

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Hi Everybody,

Thank you for all the posts, its interestin to see what everybody is up to and how they are doing it.

My question is in relation to building networks, How is everyone doing with this?
I often ring carpenters etc for quotes and they dont show or give amazing high quotes (in my opinion),
Whats the going rate for basic things like painting.

I have a 3 bed 1 bath Highset fibro house as one of my properties and got quotes to paint the inside from $3000 to $4400.
To me this sounds excessive.  Another time I wanted to do a small extension, This required packing the joists, reusing the existing windows etc, putting in 2 beams, mixed hardwood floors etc.  The extention was just under 10 square meters and the only chippie that turned up wanted $14500.

Cheers
Simo

Is this what others are paying?

Our kids have grown so our time is our own (besides working). Last year I helped a guy who wanted a break from his profession (no experience with tools). He bought a house and took 2 months off work. We really loved it and went back to his job refreshed. He rented it out. He's even thinking of doing another at a later stage.

We haven't sold any yet. They were all bought to build our portfolio. We are close to having enough (if there is such a thing) so want to move into buy and hold. Mainly as an income source as we don't have enough yet for us both to quit work.

Lately I've been seeing a lot of buy reno sell deals on RE.com lately in the sub $400K price. You can tell they have been renoed to sell by the staging. I look them up on RPdata and I see a lot of people are either under estimating the cost of the reno or over estimating the price they'll get or not factoring in all the costs. One example- paid $370K and is for sale at $419K. There is NO profit in that.
Reno $15K (if they did loads themselves)+ stamp duty and solicitor $15K + holding $5K? So cost is $405K. Then there's selling costs $9K. So IF they get asking price they'll make $5K (minus tax).hahaha.CRAZY. And that's not a one off. I'm seeing them all the time (well not that bad but not worth it.

Renovating is the buzz at the moment and people are overpaying (in my opinion anyway). If I'm going to work into the night after work and on weekends for 5 weeks I want it to be worth my while. I don't have a $ figure as it depends on the amount of work I have to do. If you are paying tradies then your profit is for just keeping an eye on it (or you could employ a manager). Also if you start moving into structural renos you and make $100K+ (high end properties). I"ll buy sub $400K so the margin isn't as high.

I guess you have to work out what your time is worth. But over estimate cost of the reno (at first anyway) and under estimate the sale price. Then that will determine your buy price.

I'm getting keen to do another now but frustrated at people overpaying. Hubby is getting withdrawals. LOL It's been nearly 6 months since we finished the last one but that was a biggy (burnout) so we needed timeout.