RENOVATE WITH PURPOSE AND CAPITAL GAINS CAN BE YOURS

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Renovation for Profit

Australians are obsessed with real estate – for living in, investing in, and for making money!  The property market gets stronger year after year, however there are still bargains out there to renovate that could represent a brilliant opportunity for the astute investor!

People often don’t know if a well-priced property, given a clever renovation, will be the buy of their lives or a money pit.  The most important tip in this whole blog is: Purchase carefully.

Having a trusted builder and/or building inspector there to give you insight prior to purchase could be the most important thing you do!  With an hour-long consultation on site, the right building inspector can:

• Provide insight into a building’s potential and pitfalls (you can’t polish a turd)

• Help to brainstorm viable options for brilliant renovations that don’t over-capitalise and

• Give rough ideas of costings so you can decide whether or not the property fits your budget and whether the potential profit will yields adequate gains

Once you’ve bought the property that you’re renovating, there are some key things to stick to that will save or make you money:

1. Keep it simple – don’t renovate with crazy embellishments and artistic flourishes unless there’s a specific reason for it.

2. Use existing plumbing waste configurations if possible – even more so if the plumbing is embedded in concrete in a unit or ground floor area. This is a massive labour cost and doesn’t always work out the way you think anyway. For example, turning a bath tub into a shower can backfire with regards to drainage when the waste pipe can’t be altered to handle an increased water flow – you end up with a shower that doesn’t drain as quickly as it should.

3. Try to increase sun light into the property – this always increases visual appeal and makes a property seem more modern.

4. Always lighten up the paint job inside any property you buy.

5. Try to increase natural ventilation to increase air flow – if you can, open up or increase the size/number of windows – improved ventilation gives a home a better feel. Because it’s an improved feeling of well-being, people can’t always quantify it but they always notice when a home is dark and pokey – it makes a remarkable difference.

6. Lighting can be an easy path to modernisation for example in a new bathroom, in combination with new tiling concealed LED strip lighting under a wall-mounted vanity looks really nice and provides ideal night lighting which is a great feature and appeals to the masses.

7. Another appealing “comfort” feature is under-floor heating added to a bathroom/toilet.  This is especially good if you are re-doing a tile bed anyway as the heating system can be used as a short term heating solution for our brief Gold Coast winters. If you’re living in the Southern States, it can be a luxury for chilly midnight toilet stops.

8. No matter what, always use licensed trades or a licensed builder. If you don’t, you won’t have the paperwork/guarantees and warranties that a purchaser will be asking for when they buy a newly renovated property…so you won’t get the best return on investment since, in this market, buyers are looking to beat down your price on any excuse.

These are our top tips!

We guarantee that if you’ve been watching a property on the market that teeters on the line between Renovate or Detonate, we can give you guidance and options, ideas and the information you need to make the right decision.

Jason Dodds is the Principal Contractor at Dwell Building Services.
Specialist Builders, Bathroom & Kitchen Renovators and Licensed Building Inspector

WHAT DOES A BUILDING INSPECTOR DO?

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Building Inspections Tweed Coast

Time to get to know your building inspector!! We get this question a lot, so I think it’s worth explaining what building inspections are all about and what you could reasonably expect your building inspector to do for you during a pre-purchase building inspection.

Building inspectors are all bound by the same standards and all building inspections are based upon the Australian Standard 4349.1 Inspection of Buildings Part 1: Pre-purchase Inspections – Residential Buildings – Appendix C.

Sounds like gobbledy-gook and unless you’re a trained professional it kind of is. What the Australian Standard does is set out the ground rules for what a building inspector is going to be doing on site and what they are required to report on, which in turn will affect the report you get.

Some key points to know about the Australian Standard are:

• The building inspection is visual only – we won’t move furniture around, peek into drawers or look behind paintings. We can’t see through walls either, but we have ways and means to figure out whether or not there is a likelihood that there is damage there.

• Some building inspectors don’t get up onto roofs, some do. We do unless it’s dangerous – it’s raining or else the roof is higher than 3.6m or has a dangerous pitch. If that’s the case, we will comment as much as we can.

• If your property is on acreage, the inspection will only cover the site up to 30m away from the main property.

• Building inspectors are looking for structural defects (major) and also maintenance items (minor) – whether or not they mention all the maintenance items is up to their discretion but we believe a complete report should. Within a year or two of owning any home, you will undoubtedly need to do at least some measure of maintenance - wouldn’t it be convenient to have a handy list of what needs doing?

• The building inspection does not cover other trades such as electrical, plumbing, air conditioning or small appliances – for that to even be possible, a building inspector would have to be an expert in all of the above, which won’t happen. An experienced building inspector will notice and comment if he sees something un-usual or irregular with a building’s electrical wiring, a missing safety switch or a leaking tap, but the finer details (does my oven pre-heat to 200 in the correct amount of time?) are left to their respective tradesmen.

If you have any questions about building inspections, what is included and what is not, call us on 0424741616 for a chat.

THINK YOU HAVE TERMITES? IT'S TIME FOR A TIMBER PEST INSPECTION!

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Pest and Building Inspections Tweed Coast and Gold Coast

With termites, as with tooth-decay, it’s cheaper to get a check-up than to fix a problem.

Termite inspections are a hugely important aspect of home maintenance, especially in this part of the world.  The Gold Coast and Tweed Shire are both noted as “Areas Of Concern” for timber pest infestation. Unless you live in a concrete box, an annual pest inspection is vital for all home owners.

To thrive, termites need a food source and a water supply. If those two possibilities are removed, they usually won’t settle in.

From a builders point of view, here are a few things you can do to reduce the likelihood of attracting termites to your home:

1. Make sure you don’t have a lot of timber laying around your property or stored underneath. If the timber is touching the soil, termites can burrow under, have a feast and then use the “cover” to get further.

2. Make sure the drainage away from your house is in good order – that means working out if your plumbing and overflow pipes, taps, drainpipes and guttering are in good order. The more constant water there is near your home, the more at risk you may be.

3. If you have a brick and tile home, check to make sure your weep holes aren’t covered by garden. If they are, it’s just like having a little ramp up into the house that they can use to come and go by.

They are a lot harder to see when your home is a slab on ground brick construction – with pole homes you can see them coming because they have to actually climb to get in – and to do that they have to build a little mud trail (tunnel) which is obvious to the naked eye.  If you see a mud trail, then they have passed that way.  There are other ways to detect them but the best way to work out whether or not you’ve got termites living with you is to organise a pest inspection with a local knowledgeable pest inspector. If you don’t know of one, ask us!

As previously mentioned, an ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure. A pest inspection will cost you a couple hundred dollars. Eradicating a colony and fixing timber pest damage can cost thousands!

THE IMPORTANCE OF WET AREAS IN YOUR HOME

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Good Home Maintenance

There is one area of your house that is more critical, in terms of home maintenance than any other. The wet areas in your home, specifically, the bathrooms.  

Your bathrooms cop a beating day in and day out. They are wet a lot of the time - during a shower and then afterwards until the humidity clears, the seals and waterproofing membrane in that room are working hard to make sure that your bathroom doesn’t wreck the rest of your home.  They need to be maintained and when they aren’t, they start costing serious money.

Most issues in a bathroom come up due to regular wear and tear – cracks in the grout and worn sealant at the joins. Sealant and grout wears pretty easily, even after just 5 years of use, so even if your bathroom is not that old, keep an eye on the seals and joins. Tile abutments require maintenance before moisture gets a chance to get into the wall substrate.

Another reason your wet areas might need refreshing of the flexible sealant is (ironically) if your home is brand new or you’ve just completed an extension. A house tends to settle. Settlement in the footings or slab can cause the seals at the tile abutments to separate just enough to let water in.

Cracks that let water through can turn your subfloor into wet Wheatbix (pole home with cracked waterproofing membrane and plywood subfloor), or merely rot your structural framing (slab on ground construction).

By keeping and eye on the area and applying a flexible sealant when you spot problems, you can save yourself a lot of money.  The cost of a mid-range bathroom renovation tends to be about $15,000+.  The cost obviously goes up if there’s structural damage to rectify around the shower cubicle.

If you weren’t planning to renovate your bathroom, a tube of sealant from the hardware store and a Popsicle stick is a pretty attractive option.

BEWARE THE LONE BUILDING AND PEST INSPECTOR

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Combined Building and Pest Inspections Gold Coast & Tweed Coast

For Arguments Sake: Could one building and pest inspector be better than two? A disturbing trend broke a little while ago with pest and building inspections – the Lone Inspector.

In challenging economic times (and lets face it, most times, when buying property are economically challenging) people come up with various ways to cut costs to attract more clients, knowing that people often make buying decisions based on price. One of those perceived economies is The Lone Inspector – getting a one-man-band to inspect your home instead of two trained professionals.

This one combined building and pest inspector is meant to save you money (only a matter of $20-$40) by covering both the pest and building inspection himself. In reality, this inspector is usually

These three simple questions will easily put rest to the perceived advantages of the one combined inspector:

1. Have you ever heard of a lawyer who is also a mechanic? What about a plumber who runs an MRI machine at the local hospital? Not many people are an expert in two fields.

2. Even if this person is both an experienced pest inspector and a licensed builder, are there many people out there who can multi-task? It’s been proven that multi-tasking is a myth.

3. If you were shopping around for a brain surgeon, would you look for the cheapest, or the best? And would you want a surgeon who had a specialist team around him, or a one-man-band who was doing the anesthetists job too? Okay, we know that it doesn’t work that way, and it is hard to perceive a building or pest inspector as being as specialised as a brain surgeon, but just think about the average cost of a property these days. For a house, you will never be spending less than $200,000.  I don’t know anyone who would happily gamble $200,000+ for the sake of a couple dollars off the price of their due-diligence.

For the sake of $40, wouldn’t you want the best possible pest AND building inspections carried out? Don’t skimp on the inspection phase of purchasing a property – it is almost guaranteed to cost you more than $40 in the long run.

PLANNING TO SELL YOUR HOUSE?

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Pre-Sale Building Inspection

If you’re thinking about selling your house, chances are you’re busy. You could be selecting a real estate agent that you feel will get the job done. You might be contacting your conveyancer to let them know you’re putting your home on the market.  Possibly you’re looking at your house trying to de-clutter and decide what to do about “loose ends” with a view to making your sale more straight-forward.

If you’re selling your home, you might want to carry out a pre-sale building and pest inspection to catch defects (or pests!) before someone else does!

All houses have things – a wall that was damaged then never got patched, a mark on the carpet that you can’t do anything about…

Often, home sellers opt to sell their property “as is”. This is a good idea, if you don’t want to carry out a lot of DIY work that may not make any difference to your final sale figure. A lot of things won’t improve your bottom line anyway.

A smart option, in this case, is to have a pre-sale building inspection carried out.  That way, you have a document that itemizes all the various maintenance type issues as they are at present within the home for potential purchasers. It also gives you, as the seller, a head’s up if there are any major defects that you weren’t aware of.

You should think about a pre-sale building and pest inspection if your home is:

• 25-30+ years old and mostly in original condition

• If you have had previous timber pest activity

• If there have been extensions or renovations done

• If it has been a tenanted property in the past

Also, if you do plan to do a small renovation “facelift” to tidy up the house, a professional opinion could be the difference between a good renovation and a bad one, so use the opportunity to get some honest advice from our building inspector.

If you are selling your house via the auction process, you really should have a pre-sale inspection report on hand to show buyers. They might not trust it 100%, because it will be coming from you, the seller, but they will at least know you are serious about selling.

More than likely, people who are interested in purchasing your property will probably get their own pest and building inspection carried out anyway, however if they are aware in advance of most issues, they are not likely to come back to you afterwards and ask for a lesser purchase price.  And if they do, you have something to come back with.

BUILDING AND PEST INSPECTIONS FOR FIRST HOME BUYERS

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | Pest and Building Inspections

Ask anyone who’s interested in investing and they’ll tell you the best time to do it is…Right Now.

And that includes investing in your future in the form of buying property. Right now is probably the best time in years for first home buyers – interest rates are at an all-time low, there are still pockets of opportunity for reasonable prices on the Gold Coast and Tweed Coast, and if you have a good mortgage broker who can steer you through the bizarre lending landscape, you’ll be winning.

Come along with us, we’ll help you through the complicated and sometimes daunting process.

Here are 3 Tips to Get You Started:

1. Don’t Cut Costs: We realise that at this time in your life, you’re probably having second thoughts about taking on so much debt, worried about money and don’t want to over-spend in the buying process…but if you try to cut costs on your “team” you could do yourself a serious disservice. We’re talking about “online only” conveyancers and “one man band” pest and building inspectors. Always use professionals you trust. In your team, you will need an experienced solicitor/conveyancer, a mortgage broker, and a licensed pest inspector and building inspector.  Don’t be afraid to call around and actually talk to people about the service they provide, make sure you are comparing apples with apples before committing.

2. Don’t Discount Ugly: There are a lot of houses out there that are ugly. But then miracles happen: you buy an old fibro shack at auction for $300,000, slap some paint on it, put in a new kitchen in and presto-chango, you’ve got a really nice house. Our building and pest inspections can save you thousands of dollars in the long run because you get a chance to have a full consultation with our inspector (who is a master builder) on site. He will give you insight into renovation potential as well as let yo know what needs to be done to maintain your dream property!

3. If you don’t trust real estate agents or are not confident negotiating…you’re not alone. There are other options if you’re not sure you can do the deal yourself. There is such a thing as a buyers agent. They are licensed real estate agents who are actually working for you and who will guide you and negotiate on your behalf. They have their fingers on the pulse of the current market and can be worth their weight in gold if you really don’t know what you’re doing. If you don’t have the money for that, get a friend or family member to help you. Think about all the people you know – is anyone a real estate agent? They could help you by sussing out properties for sale and negotiating on your behalf. If not, pick a stiff-necked uncle and go in there swinging with someone on your side…it’s not embarrassing especially once you’ve go the keys to your new home in hand.

Good luck and happy house hunting!

Dwell Building Services is your pest and building inspection expert on the Gold Coast and Tweed Coast. Our qualified and experienced inspector will ensure that you are armed with the best possible information going forward with your purchase! 

BUILDING INSPECTION ON THE GOLD COAST

by Dwell Building Services | August 2020 | A Building Inspection Case Study

You wouldn’t think that a brand new concrete high rise on the Gold Coast would need a building inspection prior to purchase.  Theoretically, if everything has been done to code and approved by Council, it shouldn’t.  However.  March 2012 we were engaged to inspected a unit in a new complex in Coolangatta – at the time approximately only 1 year old.

It’s worth blogging about because buyers can get complacent about buying into a concrete block of units and might not think they need a pest and building inspection done at all.  The initial inspection was pretty good, as you would expect with a practically new unit, but there was a retaining wall with cracking to the base, and water was leaking through it all over the entry patio.  The body corporate (via the builder) was taking care of it for our purchaser before his contract went through.

It’s important, as a purchaser that you get at least a building inspection done, even if you don’t think you need one.  Any defects present to the block of units will, in time, end up costing you through your body corporate contributions. Your initial reaction to external issues may be “that’s a body corporate thing” but remember - it’s your money that goes into the body corporate, and eventually gets spent on those issues.

It’s also worth keeping in mind that if a complex is only a year old and already has a couple of problems showing up in a building inspection report, there might be more to come sooner than you’d like.

Best to do what our property purchaser did, and hold off on the transaction until the problem was fixed.