Whether you're doing a major thousand dollar do-up or a quick paint job to refresh your home, it's important to keep the potential buyer in mind.
Almost half of Kiwi homeowners are renovating to add value to their biggest asset, a Westpac NZ recent survey of more than 800 homeowners found.
A Hamilton couple Carrie and Mitchell McIntosh have renovated and sold three homes in five years. They added a whopping $283,000 value to their latest project, a farm-style house in Ngaruawahia they've been working on for nearly three years.
The McIntosh's first home in Hamilton had a lime green bathroom and a red wallpaper in the lounge. They renovated the property into a modern art deco style.
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The couple admit they were a bit risky with the 1920s blue and gold wallpaper in the office and rusty walls, but the risk worked in their favour: a $6,000 renovation pumped up their sale price by $170,000 more their purchase price.
Although the striking art deco-style interior attracted many buyers, Carrie says neutral is best when it comes to doing-up to sell.
“Have something super plain but make it fancy with the soft furniture.”
“Even if you like something crazy, don’t do the crazy because the reality is – no one else is going to like it.”
When renovating for future buyers she recommends not to splash out on designer interior but just freshen up and modernise the place.
“Why buy a $20,000 kitchen when you can buy a similar $10,000 kitchen? Half of potential buyers could not even notice the difference.”
She has found that many potential buyers struggle to relate to a colourful or complicated interior.
“A lot of people cannot visualise the house but when the colours are neutral, they see can see it better,” Carrie said.
That strategy was applied on the McIntosh’s second project.
The couple had a tight budget of $3000 and three weeks to freshen up a rental property in Hamilton which they had bought for $370,000.
They’ve painted the walls and kitchen white, installed a new kitchen bench top and a little bar table.
“It changed the look of the whole house,” Carrie says.
The home was sold for $455,000 two years later - a $80,000 profit, some of which paid for the couple’s wedding.
The biggest renovation to date is their current Ngaruawahia home which took the pair two and a half years to renovate.
“We ripped the whole of the house out.”
A major transformation from old farmhouse to a modern industrial family home included fixing basics like insulation, plumbing, wiring as well as the fun decorating.
It cost the couple $50,000 plus their own labour - the pair did everything themselves - including knocking out a wall to create an open living space. The property has been valued at $750,000, a huge $283,000 paper profit on their original purchase price of $417,000 plus costs.
They turned a brick and wooden fireplace into a minimalistic grey and black structure, and during the year-long kitchen renovation lived off barbecued food or takeaways.
“We got really sick of the Big Mac combo and nuggets,” Carrie says.
The kitchen was painted black with a rimu wood bench top, along with black and metal furniture.
“We were one of the first ones to paint our kitchen black and now it’s trendy. So, we might change it.”
The couple were not planning on selling the Ngaurawahia home but were considering buying a property at Mt.Ruapehu and renovating it.
“We’ve worked for five years everyday pretty much. When we finished, we didn't know what to do with ourselves. ‘Is it what normal people do?’,” Carrie laughs.
Loan Market mortgage adviser Mikey Smith, 28, purchased his first property at 22 and has already sold it and invested into two more homes.
Smith's plan is to purchase a “bad property in a good neighbourhood” keeping in mind potential buyers.
The renovation of an “uninhabitable” Glendowie unit cost Smith under $30,000 and made him a profit of $100,000 on the original purchase price of $500,000, when he sold for $630,000 six months later.
The capital gain was about half of the profit and renovations did the rest, he said.
“It was a lot of hard work and if I had to pay someone it wouldn’t be worth it.”
He was repairing his first home after work until midnight daily and had friends helping for a box of beers on a weekend.
When renovating for future buyers he recommended to keep it simple and modern.
“I went for a nice new carpet, off-whites, nice granite bench top and a nice colour tap ware seemed to work.”
Plain colours, clean windows and nothing over the top in terms of interior would keep the property “easily sellable”, Smith advises.
“I didn’t want to shoot myself in the foot.”
