A walkthrough of cosmetic upgrades that increased a property's value: $4,400 for rendering, $2,235 for furniture staging, $1,600 for roof work. Total spend was $25,000, about 6% of the property's original price. Small targeted fixes to paint, floors, kitchen, and bathroom can deliver outsized returns.
Questions this video answers
$2,235
$4,400
$1,600
$25,000
About 6% of the original property value
Chapters
As you saw in the work that was carried out, most of it concentrated on the aesthetic features of the property. Rendering, painting, floor covering and all of those high return items that add substantial bang for your buck. We also concentrated on the kitchen and the bathroom, with which are the two big value add areas of a property. The bottom line is that even small improvements can add significant value to a property. A simple exterior paint job alone can easily add thousands to the end value. So are you ready to head back? Well, here we are and the project is completely finished and on the market. Want to take a look? Well, come with. So gone are the ugly concrete steps and that motley red paint on the porch area here. Even the 1980s old fashioned air conditioner has been removed. I think you'll agree that now we're kind of looking at a nice livable area. The old flaky paint has been removed and the ceiling painted. We have a lovely outdoor setting which helps create a welcoming entrance out here on the veranda. It's been a huge improvement. So let's have a look inside. Wow, what a different first impression you now get when entering this home. The brown door has gone. The light Baltic pine look, that's also gone. Wow, it's like walking into a new home. This just looks fabulous. When doing a cosmetic renovation, the three things that I think add the most value is painting, polishing the floorboards and staging the property. As you can see here, a well staged property makes it look wonderful. Now you might be thinking that this may be for a property that's for sale, but it's also for a property if you're wanting to hold the property and access equity. And why? Because we want to impress the valuer and staging a property can do that for you. You're creating the scene. The total cost of our furniture staging, $2,235. So gone is the timber paneling and that archway. Now for a few extra bucks, a plasterer and a labourer. This has really added a lot of value and it looks fabulous. Now you might remember this room. It was at sea, literally. With some re stumping and replacing the skirting boards. This is actually a quite a lovely little dining room. You may also remember we had a ceiling fan here, old and ugly with fluorescent lighting. Now these have been replaced with some nice inexpensive bunnings lighting and I think it looks great. The chrome lights came from bunnings and cost $24 for each set of. Now you might remember these bench tops. They were tied and chipped with a specialised paint. They've Just been painted and I think you'll agree the surface looks pretty good. Now, you might remember when we did our initial inspection. Now, there was a large gap here between the bench top and, and the cupboards and it really looked a little bit silly. What we have now is actually a really great space and usable as well. We have a couple of benches, some down lights and these great splashbacks. Now, I want you to have a look at this splashback. It looks wonderful and has created a bit of a feature for the kitchen. The splashback itself is actually a standard size that we got from Bunnings. Now, what this does mean is that sometimes with standard sizes you do need joins, as you'll see see here. But a few decorating items means that we can actually cover this up quite nicely. Now, this can mean a huge difference to your budget using standardized sizes compared to having something custom made. So that's something to remember. You'll notice the cupboards have also been painted. Gone is that pine? Look, we've got a new neutral colour scheme here and the handles have been replaced. In the bedrooms, there's not a lot to be done here. All we did was paint, carpet, new light fixtures and of course, the staging. As you may recall, in the hallway there was some water damage. Now, that was caused from a leaking shower behind this wall. The joists were not damaged, so all we needed to do was replace a couple of floorbo. Now, we know the bathroom is one of those rooms where you can really add a lot of value. And in this case there hasn't been a lot of changes. In actual fact, this is the original bath. It has just been resurfaced with a new paint. And we did get rid of those two toilet roll holders. Good riddance to them. And the towel rails, they just dated the bathroom. Now, we did have some shower damage here, so we actually had to retile. But one of those few, I guess, decorating tips I want to share with you is contrast. Especially in a smaller size bathroom, a darker tile on the floor and a lighter tile on the wall adds a really nice contrast. And even if you're not a style guru, you're actually set up pretty well to create a really nice bathroom feature. Now, the. The biggest transformation on the outside of the house was obviously the render. And as you may remember, the bricks were painted so that we had to use an acrylic render. But I think you'll agree it's made all the difference. Gone are those ugly 70s window sills replaced with clean rendered lines. We've used coloured Render in a traditional render finish or sand finish, which just looks great. What an enormous change it has made to the street appeal. The total cost of the rendering was $4,400. Remember those old grey roof tiles? Now they've been painted in Colarbon Monument. There was a few repairs that had to be done and a bit of pointing all up sixteen hundred dollars. The landscaping consisted of modest plantings that were deliberately concentrated in the front yard. Landscaping doesn't have to cost a fortune or win any design awards. A few red cordylines and black dyed mulch has really created a great street appeal. So for the budget all up, we have a total spend of $25,000. This equates to about 6% of the original property value. So, as you can see, this is different to what we looked at with the renovation formulas. The cosmetic renovation formula had the renovation costs at 10% of the purchase price. This just shows that the formula should be taken as a guide. It's not until you carry out a full evaluation that you can accurately estimate the renovation cost. So our cosmetic renovation has come to an end. But before we go, let's have a look at the transformation that's taken place. Well, our cosmetic renovation may have come to an end, but our structural renovation is just about to begin. In the next module, we take an in depth look at a structural renovation, the most advanced but potentially the most rewarding renovation strategy. So see you in the next module.
