The Ultimate Guide To Renovation Course - Module 4: The Property Inspection

There's so many things to look at when you're inspecting a property, especially when you're trying to look at 10 in one day. You don't have a lot of time. Now, it's easy for me to go through this module and explain to you all the things you need to look for. However, it's probably a lot easier if I actually show you. And here we are. Now, this property is very much on my short list, so I've organized through the agent for a full hour so I can go through and have a more thorough look of what kind of renovation costs I'm going to be up for. Now, I'm armed with my checklist. I've got the iPad version as well, so why don't we go and have a look? It's all about first impressions. And you know what, those stairs are wobbly. Now, this is the entrance area, and it's a nice big area, but I bet you no one uses it because it's ugly. So I'd be looking at doing some simple things. First of all, getting rid of this character glass and, you know, this air conditioner, which, looking at the spiderwebs, I doubt even works. I'd be cleaning this up, painting the outside of the property, definitely. That is where the bang for the buck is. And I'd be updating this and giving it a facelift. You know, these kind of structures just make it look old. I'll be putting in some wooden posts here. I don't mind the rails. I'm trying to do things economically and we don't need to go to the extra expense there. You know, this is really handy, having a cover over here, especially in the hot weather. And I think that once we scrape back the paint, give it a nice coat. It's all about first impressions. And this is our chance to make this entrance area really look great. This is where we get to add the value. You know, one of the things that I first look for is actually a smell, the smell of fresh paint. You'll find that paint and wallpaper can be covering up so many different types of problems.

First, I'm checking the walls and ceiling for warping and cracks. I'm also checking that the doors and windows are square, as this is another sign that there has been some movement in the street structure of the building.

One of the things you may not be picking up here from the camera is actually this floor feels like it's on a bit of a lean. Now, a telltale sign of that is actually if there is a gap between the Skirting boards and the floorboards, which we have here. Now, this could be a problem, so we want to be able to get under and have a look at the stumps. I just want to inspect to see anything that's going to cost me some money, ugly things that I may get rid of, things that might date a property as well. And here we have the kitchen. Now, this kitchen doesn't look too bad actually, which is good. Interesting that we've got such high cupboards up here. Nice tiles. You know what, in a really fancy renovation, I'd put possibly be looking at ripping this out, but not in this area. Remember, we're renovating for the market, so maybe we'll just clean this up. A bit of paint, bit of resurfacing. Let's have a look at that a bit later. I'm also looking for any signs of.

Damp, including rotting carpet mould on the walls or ceiling, musty odours. Left alone long enough, water and dampness can cause real damage to a building's structural integrity. And it's also one of the reasons that a house sinks and requires restumping.

So here I am outside the bathroom and you know what, there's evidence of water damage and, you know, it looks like this has been going on for some time. It's one thing to actually fix this up. So what we're going to have to do is we're going to have to get some new floorboards, match them up and potentially a new joist. So we need to be aware of that as a cost. But the underlying problem that's causing this, you know what, we really need to deal with that, otherwise this is just.

Going to happen again and we don't want that.

So now let's have a look at the bathroom. Actually, this is quite a large bathroom, but there's not a lot that we need to do in it. We've got some tiles here, a bit of a mix match. You know, we could rip off all the tiles and go to great expense or we could paint them. Now, once again, we're renovating for the target market, so you just need to be aware of what standard the property has to be that you're renovating up to. And the best way of doing that is checking out the other open houses around the area. So we've got a yellow bath. This probably could do with a little bit of a retouch and that could cut. Take a couple hundred dollars and we can have that looking fantastic. Now, there's nothing wrong here with the vanity. It actually looks Quite good. I'd reuse that, maybe put on a few new handles or something. But there's not a lot that you'd have to do with that. You know, there's things that date a property and if we're trying to make it look a bit modern. Now we're not creating a whole modern property, and we don't pretend we are. But we can take away things that can add and date a property, like old towel rails, maybe ugly lamps or fixtures. And we could obviously improve some of the toilet holders. These aren't big jobs. And you know what, sometimes that's all you need from the bathroom. So here we have the laundry. One of the things, things that I always test. Is water pressure and hot water. I'm listening for the knocking and I'm looking for sluggish flow that could tell me there could be problems with the drainage. All's good here. Now we have some built ins here. I don't know what era they were done in, but you know, they're always handy to have storage in the laundry. So I'd keep these, probably paint them up a bit and even put in some new boards here. But you know, this is a laundry. No one really expects lot and especially in this area and this type of property. Now this is interesting. I think people may have put a fridge here, second fridge or something in the past. But you know what, when you've got storage, it is fantastic. So if we can create some storage here, I think that'd be good. And I think we could be a bit quirky with it. Not too sure what it would be. I definitely put doors in and maybe even a board here. So you could charge all those things that you need to charge your torches and your phones and things. Be great to have all those in one place. And I don't know, maybe I'd go to Ikea and get one of those pull out pantry things. But you know, there's a great opportunity here to have some really good storage. So here we are in the lounge room and check out this wall. You know what, I don't like it. It would have to go and we'd be putting some gyprock up, bit of plasterboard and for less than 500 bucks, I reckon we could actually modernize this completely, including modernizing this architect. Square it off and we'd have a really nice entrance into our kitchen. Now once again, when we're looking at modernizing things, check out this fireplace. So here we have a bedroom, standard four walls. Not a lot here. In actual fact, this Is one of my often concerns that I concentrate on not enough power points. It drives me crazy. Potentially. It's going to drive your tenants crazy too. There's one PowerPoint in this room. You know what, I usually try to get some wardrobes in as well, just make it more rentable. However, I don't think there's enough room here to do it. There's nothing really wrong with this at all. Painting, new light fittings. And you know what? I really don't like the color of the carpet. One of the things I'm looking at always is evidence of pests as well. So whenever I'm looking at a room, I'm actually looking to see if there's any bora or white ants, because that can be costly.

But the only way to know this for sure is to organise a full professional pest inspection.

Now here we have another bedroom, you know, another second bedroom in a three bedroom house. It's actually quite big. It has a really roomy feel to it. Once again, I'd get rid of the carpet. They've tried here to put a wardrobe. So it tells me there's room to have a wardrobe and a double bed, which is good. Once again, I doubt that I'd actually put in a fixed wardrobe in this property. The window fixtures here are fine, I don't really need to change them. Once again, it's about your target market and what fits the renovation. One thing I don't really like here is this sliding door. Now, if my market was a group of people living together, say friends, this really doesn't give a lot of privacy. However, if it's the third bedroom in a family home and you've got a couple of kids in here, not a big deal. Once again, it's about your target market. So in this room, like the other bedrooms, a great lick of paint, fixing up some of the lampshades and making it a little bit more modern. But there's not a lot to do here. I think this is quite good. So here we have the master bedroom. Nice big feel. Bit worried here about this cracking, actually. Now we did see some evidence of some stump issues and I think this pretty much confirms it. Once again, nice big bedroom. We're going to paint it. Hey, it's got two power points here, so I'm not going to have to spend extra money in running an extra power point, which is great because the cost of replastering and painting and getting electrician to run in a power point can really add up. One of the things I also look for is actually Evidence of security on the windows and on the doors. Now, it may not seem a lot, but if you're going to put in a really good Lockwood security system, you know, and we're talking about just bolting something onto the windows and onto the doors, they cost significant 60, 80 bucks each. You've got 10, 15 windows. You're up near $1,000. And that's without installation. So just keep in mind whether they've actually got some security here or not. Once again, this is a really nice bedroom. You know, I think there is actually room here to fit a wardrobe. And if you're going to put a wardrobe in, it would be in the master bedroom. So we know renovation is all about perception, no more so than its street appeal. It's important that we actually look at the front of the property and look what we can do to improve it. Now, this is not going to be a cheap option, but, you know, I reckon that a bit of render on this property is actually going to make it really lift in value and perception and it's going to look great from the street.

Inspect all outside walls. Are they straight, rotten or cracked? And if it's a brick house, the state of the mortar between the bricks must also be checked.

Now, this is not glamorous, but it's something that I always do and often you'll find these locked. So make sure you get a key off the agent. I always inspect underneath the property. Now, there's so many things that you can learn about here. Firstly, if you're going to put in some ventilation, some split system air conditioning, you need enough room to be able to get in and put that in. Secondly, you're looking at the stumps. Now, we already had some concerns about the stumps here, so you get an impression of that as well. In addition to that, you know, a lot of water issues, drainage issues, I'm looking at anything that's going to create me a problem. Now the other thing that I often have found when looking underneath buildings is a ton of crap. And in actual fact, in one instance, I know it cost someone a couple of thousand dollars just to get all the things out. Now that might actually be a condition of one of the condition that you put into your offer to have that gone by the time you take over the property. Whatever you do, get in and check out what's happening underneath the property, because it's going to cause you problems. It's going to cost you money if you don't know about it.

And ideally, the soil height around the house should not be higher than the soil height underneath the house.

As you can see when you're on site, there's so many things to consider and we've had a look at those, but now it's time to move on.