Presale Renovation - Naremburn

jetnelson
Aug 18, 2020
3 min read

Updated: May 7, 2022

In 2019, the challenge was a brick house in Naremburn that had not been updated in over 30 years. The guidance from 4 separate real estate agents was to sell as is. However, this property was not ready to go on the market unless the owner was happy to accept a low price. The further challenge was that the owner was going into a nursing home and needed to pay the required fee by a certain date to avoid additional charges. That date was only 20 weeks away. Given the marketing campaign and settlement period would take 10 of those weeks, I would need to get the transformation done in just 10 weeks. Challenge accepted!

The Planning

I planned a number of repairs and updates to get the house looking it's absolute best whilst avoiding the more complex areas where a buyer would want to change the layout in future as part of a greater extension to the property.

I created a simple design to boost the street appeal whilst selecting a modern yet elegant colour palette inside to showcase the period features of the home.

My schedule showed the required works could be done in the timeframe and budget. My research showed it was sensible to undertake the works and only those works. Scope is an extremely important aspect to manage in ANY project. Without this, it does not give a boundary to the required work and with a house that had not been touched for over 30 years, the things that need to be worked on would be endless. I didn’t have the luxury of time.

As the work was all mostly lots of smaller jobs, I interviewed a handyman who was very friendly and seemed to know his stuff. I drew up the scope and sent it over to him to get him started. Meanwhile, I engaged a painter I had used over the years on other properties to get started on a full interior and exterior paint job.

The Delivery

Whilst the handyman started out ok, he soon became distracted with a number of things that come with a house of this age, and he was falling behind on the agreed work whilst working on things that HE thought were necessary.

A conversation one afternoon resolved that and he was back on track with the scope I had requested.

The flooring team were fantastic. The floors was sanded, tinted and polished and apart from a minor repair, was completed within the allocated 4 day period which allowed 2 days for drying time.

This lined up as planned so the painter could then touch up and finish off his internal works.

And with the painter now mostly finished outside, the garden team took a few days to cut, trim and plant a number of new shrubs to tidy the garden areas. We were looking very much on track at this stage with only 4 weeks to go.

A week later, there was another quality issue with the same handyman on a roof section he was meant to repair. I could see he was not going to make the required fixes in time and we only had 3 weeks left on the timeline. Not only that, I also discovered another section of repair work above a window was substandard. I terminated our agreement with just 3 weeks to go on the timeline. It was a tough decision though one that was definitely needed to ensure we finished on time for the owner.

Next, I advertised and interviewed for suitably qualified tradies to complete the window and roof repairs. It did cost a little more, though by the end of that week, we were back on track with the roof and window repairs and the quality was great. This paved the way for the cleaners I had booked 2 weeks earlier. A team of 4 came in to clean the entire house from windows to skirting boards, flooring and even door handles. The home had never looked this good. And the staging lifted it to a whole new level.

The Sale

Over the course of the marketing campaign, there was over 80 groups that inspected and a whilst a couple of cheeky conservative offers came in, we knew holding out for auction in that market would provide the best result for the owner. And it did, as they pocketed $250k more than if they sold the house in original condition.

Although the guidance of 4 real estate agents was to sell as is, the presale renovation definitely maximised the sale price here to benefit the owner and family.

The Numbers

	As Is - Expected	Actual After Presale Renovation	Difference
Sale Price	$1,800,000	$2,120,000	$320,000
Legals & Marketing	$9,000	$9,000	$0
Agent Commission (2%)	$36,000	$42,400	$6,400
Renovation Costs (includes JETNELSON Fee)	$0	$64,000	$64,000
To Owner	$1,755,000	$2,004,600	$249,600