Planning a renovation?
Renovating a property is more than just a pure financial decision. Choosing to renovate can significantly improve your lifestyle and fulfill your needs or desires, but it can also be stressful considering the money and time being put into your decision. It’s important to consider everything that you’re investing in before renovation begins.
To help make renovating a breeze, we’ve compiled a list of 7 things to consider before you begin!
1. Be clear on why you are renovating. There are many reasons to renovate a property, you may want to enhance its liveability, extend, update or fix up a property to rent out or sell. If renovations are for family or personal reasons, then it can often involve a more emotional spend and it can be easy to over-capitalise and get carried away! On the other hand, if the renovation is a pure-financial one and you plan to rent out or sell the property in future, then you may look at it more logically and from a return on investment perspective.
2. Consider getting an independent valuation for the property. This can be a good way to get an idea of what other properties in the area are valued at and help you work out what is reasonable and worthwhile spending, so you don’t over-capitalise.
3. Put together a budget and keep a close eye on it throughout the process – costs can escalate quickly!
4. Make a list of your needs, wants and nice to haves. It can be easy to get carried away so it’s important to try to keep things in perspective. Cutting back the ‘nice to haves’ can help save your budget without compromising your needs.
5. Consider where you might live while you renovate and factor this in. In some cases, you may be able to live through the renovations particularly if they are only short term, minor or cosmetic. But for bigger, structural renovations you may need to move out for a few weeks, months or even longer! Will you stay with friends or family, or rent another place?
6. Consider how you’re going to pay for the renovations. If you’re using equity in your home loan or redrawing an amount from a line of credit or other financing arrangements, factor in the extra repayments, fees and any implications this will have on your lifestyle.
7. And, before you put hammer to nail, it pays to first check with your local council (as well as your body corporate – if you live in an apartment or townhouse) as you might find that there certain local planning laws (and/or strata title rules and regulations) in place that may put restrictions on your renovation plans.
Reality shows such as “The Block” and “House Rules” can make renovating look easy. However in reality, a renovation project can be tiring and stressful. Make a point to keep an open communication between you and others involved in the renovation, whether that be your partner or family members, to make things easier. Also, make sure to take time to relax when things become overwhelming or too much to manage at the time.
