Browse Forums Increasing Home Value 1 Apr 06, 2010 12:40 pm Hi All, URGENTLY NEED SOME ADVICE! RENOVATE OR BULLDOZE AND BUILD??? Would be very interested on any feed back - i've tried to include as much info as possible so that you guys may add your 2cents to what you would recommend we do. We were looking at renovations this year but after having plans drawn up for 1x tiny bathroom extension and DIY the 2nd bathroom then adding costs for, tiling throughout, new plumbing throughout, new gutters, new doors, large retaining walls to front and back, remove a wall here replace there, fix pool, enclose car port paint inside and out + + + + the Dollars are all becoming way too much looking at borrowing approx $100,000 just to renovate - is this over capitalizing?! History - 4x2 house we bought the house 5yrs ago @ $250,000 (today valued at approx $390,000) in DUNCRAIG - House is 41 yrs old hence in desperate need of TLC - We LOVE our location, schools, parks, rec center, beach all within a short walk. So we decided we are NOT moving and enlisted the 5 year plan..... The 5 year Plan was to borrow against our current mortgage borrow extra say $100,000 and RENOVATE the hella outa the old girl!! This would totally bring our current house back to livable state and modernize, add value etc etc - SELL WITHIN 5 YRS & upgrade (hence 5 yr plan) - Hubby and I are both working in constructions so have many contacts and are quite handy and willing to get our hands dirty BUT... ...Will this all be in vein? is $100,000 too much to spend on renovations to modernize a house? Most normal houses in Duncraig are all $600,000 and above ours is so less as requires all the TLC and MORE - We have started to reneg on our 5 yr plan and are thinking heck if we are spending $100,000 on renovations then why not bull doze the house and borrow a full $250,000 and build a rippa on the land and make that our 10 yr plan? Its all alot of money - If the friendly people in the know on this forum would be so kind to give us your opinion's on what to do in this situation that would be a huge help! Thanks in advance Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 2Apr 11, 2010 8:05 am build a rippa of a home! whats debt...you cant take it with you?!!! Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 3Apr 11, 2010 8:47 am Hi RenoQueen2010 We are doing the buldoze and re-build exercise up in the hills. A word of advice – have your soil engineering test done before deciding what to do as this will determine the cost of your site works and can add dramatically to your total figure. Ours are $60k+ Remember demolishing is not cheap either - the government increased the dumping levy and the costs of demolishing increased by approx 20% so you will be lucky if you get anybody to demolish your place under $15K. When going around the display villages make sure you understand what you get in the base price as the builders have the displays fitted with materials and fitting to show them appealing to the buyers. Some of these finishes are from the upgrades range and if you want to select them you will need to budget for the upgrades at pre-start. E.g. tiles in the displays are all upgraded - read the specs line by line as the builders only offer 200x200mm tiles for floors and walls with some borring borders as standard - anything else is an upgrade plus you will pay extra for the labour - yes for the labour as they require more "thinking" and harder to lay if the walls underneath are not perfectly straight... Remember to add the cost of renting during the demolishing and building process – add extra time as you have to move out well in advance so they can rat bait the place – I am estimating 10 month for the entire process in my case but can change. As well budget for costs after building e.g. New floor coverings (e.g. carpets, tilling), new window coverings, new furniture, painting, landscaping, fencing, maybe retaining walls (if needed), lighting - as what you get is 1 light baten with a bulb and shade for each room... if you want downlights as per most of the displays they charge over $110 a pop, and the list can go on... I don't want to freak you out but $250K is not stretching too far these days... Preliminary agreement 23/11 Contract 22/03 Prestart 06/04 - finalised on 30/04 Unconditional approval 10/05 Demolition 05/07 Slab 26/08 Brickwork 13/09-06/10 Roof frame started 07/10 viewtopic.php?f=31&t=32292 Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 4Apr 11, 2010 9:54 am Curious as to why a new house would be a 10 year plan and a renovated house would be a 5 year plan? If you love the area, I'm assuming it's because you figure wouldn't need to upgrade from the new house? Can you renovate the old house to a standard that is good enough to make it a 10 year plan and save yourselves some dosh? A lot of houses from that era are nice and solid, structurally. Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 5Apr 11, 2010 10:19 am You are us 12 years ago. We bought our house spent about $100K renovating over the years (including landscaping, paving, large shed and pool). After all that the house was still a piece of sh#t and we demolished last year. Demo cost about 8K for 3br brick + brick garage with asbestos roof (we are in Adelaide). Ask yourself - will you be happy with the 100K reno or is it just a work around. Does it just leave you with maintenance or is there still more work to be done. Can you live in the house while you renovate - how does that effect your quality of life - we had no backyard for about a year which was really hard in a tiny house with a toddler and a baby. Our house is costing 230K all up and is about 230sqm. Luckily we kept the shed and pool and pulled up all our pavers (80sqm). We salvaged a lot from the house before we demolished. We also decked out our shed which we are now living in during the build. Houses are moneypits (hence my avitar) but work out what you will be happiest with in the long run. All I can say is once you have made your decision stick with it. Goodluck and enjoy the journey whatever you choose. 2011 Home Sweet Home Handover 03 September 2010 PCI 27August 2010 Plumber 20August 2010 Electrician 19August 2010 Painting 04 August 2010 Cabinets 13Jul2010 Lockup 23June Frame 20April slab 1Mar10 Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 6Apr 12, 2010 12:33 pm You are us NOW! We have a very similar situation, we bought on location - 6 acres with a nice coastal view in a great position, except the house was an A grade dump, a very tired brick veneer 25 year old house with budget fittings and very low ceilings. The additional money we spent on acquiring the location restricted what we could do with the renovation (or rebuilding). Total demolition and rebuild from scratch was prohibitively expensive, and involved MANY time lags (we bought in Montville QLD btw). There is the engineering requirements, soil testing, council approvals, time lags with notifications of building intent, upgrades to sewer lines and installation of envirocycle or similar. The option we took bypassed most of these expenses, we chose to redesign the house remaining within the roofline and not adding any additional living areas, basically gut the place and expand rooms where possible. This did not require the amount of red tape(ie dead money) and council approval that a total rebuild or expansion would have. The costs of each option really need to be analysed closely, as does the timeline for completion in each case. The inconvenience factor of not having a liveable home for the duration of the reno can present a huge problem and escalate the costs. If you have construction contacts you can probably accelerate the whole process, though ground up rebuild is obviously going to take far longer, in our case we reduced months of work to weeks by choosing to renovate the exisiting structure. In the end it is interesting to read other peoples experiences however only you can tell what you can afford to do. Even a blue chip area can be overcapitalised, though if you are happy to stay for 10 years it can still be justified, spending 100k on a house wisely should reflect in close to that level of improved value. Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 7Apr 12, 2010 2:02 pm Hmm it is an interesting situation you both face! We've just embarked on the process of demolishing and rebuilding our old house in Bayswater, but our house was a fibro shack basically so there was no way to extend it that made financial sense. To give you an idea re costs we're building a 3x2 with study, double garage and alfresco and some nicer fittings than standard for ~ 187k. Our site costs were about 24 k which is included in the 187k Demolition is ~12k. Still, based on the value of new houses in the area we should have a bit of equity left in there (we aren't paying rent though, we're staying with family) It all depends on your circumstances, really. If you're planning on having kids anytime soon then I wouldn't mortgage yourself to the absolute max. But if that is not a consideration then I would definitely look at demolishing and building. Duncraig is a good suburb, I think, close to the beach and still fairly close to the CBD which is a huge selling point in Perth! I don't think I've been much help but its such a personal decision.... ~*~Moved in on the 16th April 2011~*~ Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 8Apr 13, 2010 10:20 am What size block do you have and what is the zoning? The reason I ask is that the way to really make some $$$ out of property is to subdivide. The older suburbs often have bigger blocks just right for subdivision. The Perth Metro area is spreading very fast and in-fill housing is becoming more and more popular. Councils are slowly rezoning areas closer to the city in order to allow people to do this. If you renovate and your existing house is situated in such away to allow a future battle axe subdivision this may alter any 5 or 10 year plans. We have just sold our renovated house close to the city after subdividing off the rear block. At times I wondered if bulldozing the lot would not have been easier as living through a 2 year renovation hasn't always been easy for my Wife. However we have ended up with a very cheap block of land and are about $100k ahead of where we would have been if we had demolished. Now we get to build a brand new house just as we like. A renovated house is always someone elses house with your tastes built into it. A new house can be a house with your tastes AND YOU built into it. But remember, the house will always depreciate, its the land that appreciates. Probably haven't answered your question but may have given you something to consider. Accessible Carpentry & Cabinets accessiblecarpentry@gmail.com accessiblecarpentry.com.au https://www.facebook.com/pages/Accessible-Carpentry-Cabinets/583314911709039 Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 9Apr 13, 2010 10:39 am Hi All, Thanks for the discussions! Great to read through all the info and experiences! LOVE THIS please keep your posts coming! Thanks again! We think still renovate - Re-Build is going to blow out way over $250,000. I really cant believe how much houses have gone up in price. Just before we bought our current house 5 yrs ago, we looked at building a 4x2 for $95,000, house only and land was $130,000 and we scoffed at those prices HAAAAAAAAA! The 5 year plan is just how long we wish to stay in the this house before moving across Marmion Ave into Sorrento. Then possibly 5 yrs after that moving a couple streets hopefully to West Coast hwy on the beach and finally we will have our dream house on the beach - or similar. If we did a re-build where, we think that would be a new house and a dream one, it would also stretch us with the mortgage so we would be staying there longer hence the 10 year plan haha Regardless this house requires "fixing up" before we sell & before we start our family in the next year or so.... Live-in Renovations it is fuuuuuuuuuuuun.... Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 10Apr 13, 2010 6:02 pm Hiya Reno, I think your should do the reno but keep in mind $100k wont go that far these days depending on what extent you are going with the reno. Knock down rebuild is expensive and there is a fair bit of cost just to get the house out of the ground before you even start. Also there is the land value to take into account. You said that your current house is valued at $390k so if you knock down you have a piece of land that owes you $390k + say $20k for demolish (not sure on this figure) Land value is now $410 + build cost of $250k is it going to be worth $660k in your area? In my opinion the knock down rebuild would be over capitalising..... Budde Design 3D Architecural Visualizations, Architectural Rendering, Artist Impressions, 2D & 3D floor plans http://www.buddedesign.com nathan@buddedesign.com Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 11Apr 21, 2010 1:38 am Hi Reno Q, if you scoffed 5 years back you will choke in 5 more, chippy has the answer is dependent on the potential redevelopment R zone and the probability this may well be relaxed in the near future to deal with Perth s population explosion the size and R code? Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 12Apr 21, 2010 8:04 am Duncraig may well be rezoned soon. there are serious rumours around that mid year Stirling CC is planning on rezoning parts of Hamersley ( west section) Re: Renovate or Budddoze and Build?? Duncraig PERTH WA 13May 28, 2010 12:00 am Interesting discussion. We are in the same boat... but we are just over the border in Padbury. We are renovating our 3x1 with bargain timber floors, landscaping, panting, low cost kitchen, bathroom and laundry update and maybe a front fence and some rendering down the track...but we are cautious of over investing. Unlike Duncraig, I’m not confident that a double garage and/or bedroom/ensuite addition would pay dividends for us. kexkez is right. Stirling is working on, what they call 'Local Area Plans' which may propose higher density codes for some properties in the future. I believe Joondalup has released a draft Local Housing Strategy. It may be on their website, but more extensive consultation will start soon. It’s worth a look as your property may be earmarked for a higher density code in the future. This would mean that it may not be worth renovating extensively, as the house may need to be demolished (albeit by you or a future purchaser of the property) to accommodate a second dwelling in the future (depending on where the house is situated on the lot). All the best, I look forward to hearing which way you go. if the original house is in good condition most of what you listed could be added in stages without the need for KDR and costs and disruption of having to live elsewhere… 1 13827 the step up is 30mm and wanting it to be flat . how much does the concrete have to be lowered .we plan on removing bath and lenghten shower and adding seat. the old bath… 0 12008 Thank you so much everyone. This all makes a lot of sense. I guess when you talk to a builder who butters up everything to look very polished, you get to start believing… 7 18557 |