Employ a project manager to do small unit reno ?

Do you guys organise and manage your own reno's ?

Anyone here employ a manager to do it all for you? I'm thinking of going down this route.

I figure if I buy something that is quite run down and needs a reno i'll have less competition from other buyers for the property. I can get it revalued and gain some equity and also will get a decent kind of tenant with a decent rental return

How much for a full reno for a 50 - 70 sqm ip? $10 K 20 K I'm not sure.

Sorry in advance if these questions have already been asked

Oh and I wonder what ever happened to Celeste who used to post here. She was a Pert reno specialist.


thanks
 
How run down can a unit of that size possibly be?

Give it a 5k tart up for paint and floor coverings will likely make a world of difference.That doesnt need to be managed, just get a couple of quotes, hand them the keys and let them have at it.

If really bad, maybe the same again on kitchen cabinets and bathroom tiles or whatever is needed.
 
I figure if I buy something that is quite run down and needs a reno i'll have less competition from other buyers for the property. I can get it revalued and gain some equity and also will get a decent kind of tenant with a decent rental return

I think you'll find properties requiring a Reno are actually quite high in demand, helped along by all the Reno TV shows recently.

Also, if you need to keeps costs down, best to organize the trades yourself, if you need them at all, rather than add another expense of a project manager to your base costs.
 
Depends on the scale?
do you really need a project manager to manage a tradie to rip out and install a kitchen,
plus a plumber to replumb a few pipes

followed by a painter to paint the walls

especially for a unit,

you will find that if you do the managing your self, you will learn heaps,heaps and more, even if your minor mistakes cost you a little bit extra
 
I agree with Truly Exotic - a reno can be organised yourself. As long as you get the trades in the correct order, and they have a way to let themselves into the property (we either give them a key or ask my father in law who is retired to meet them there) then you don't actually need to be there for the work to go ahead.

In terms of cost, if you're redoing kitchen and bathroom, as well as floors and repainting, budget $20K, but you will hopefully have change left out of this. How keen you are to do stuff yourself will also affect the final price - we have painted all our properties ourselves, for example.
 
People hire me to manage their renos. I also own / have networks with most trades and services. It will generally cost 20-30% more if i'm managing the entire body of works.

However if you just need the house painted, tiled or gyprocked, I would just send the appropriate trade over and they can manage themselves. Really depends where your time is more worth while.

eg. if you make a lot at work, best stick to what you are good at and leave managing tradies to the professionals. If you are not a high income earner, best to build up equity by doing a lot of the work yourself (i was both a high income earner and did the work myself beforehand, not sure if it was worth it financially tbh, i just enjoyed pulling houses apart).

Where the value comes in is the advice and access to cheaper services, I've had people approach me to demolish and rebuild their kitchen when all it needed was a lick of paint and new appliances at 1/3 of the price.
 
I've renovated a few of my existing IP's over east & in Perth.

I used my property manager to project manage the reno's on all of them.

They gain the quotes and email them to me and I give them a reply email advising them which quote to run with.

Thats as much as I get involved with the renovation.

I hope this helps.
 
Hi there,

Relatively new here. I'm in the process of finding and purchasing my first IP in Brisbane. I live over west so any renovations needed will be managed from interstate.

Given that I will only be willing to visit the IP once per year, would I be better off using a project manager to manage the renovations for me? How hard is it to manage renovations from interstate? To make matters a little more complicated, I don't know anyone in Brisbane so cannot get assistance with letting tradies in etc.

Thanks.
 
Depends on the scale?
do you really need a project manager to manage a tradie to rip out and install a kitchen,
plus a plumber to replumb a few pipes

followed by a painter to paint the walls

especially for a unit,

you will find that if you do the managing your self, you will learn heaps,heaps and more, even if your minor mistakes cost you a little bit extra

I would not see anyone with a solid or basic understanding or Building would need a project manager for a reno. As someone mentioned, this will depend on scale, however, generally, part of the fun is bring tactile and seeing and feeling progress of the reno and personally, I love knocking down walls.
 
I would not see anyone with a solid or basic understanding or Building would need a project manager for a reno. As someone mentioned, this will depend on scale, however, generally, part of the fun is bring tactile and seeing and feeling progress of the reno and personally, I love knocking down walls.
I would never pay someone to rip stuff out. I am just finishing up a 4 month reno of a 1963 brick veneer. The best fun was the demo. Bathroom vanity, tiles, kitchen cabinets, stove, tiles, laundry tub, toilet and tiles all got ripped out. That was awesome (except the toilet... yuck!). Some of the walls went down to studs too... which was really interesting. The worst thing was painting trim and laying carpet tiles. For installation, the best was the kitchen, making a laundry cabinet from leftovers from the kitchen and tiling. I liked all that. Out of everything I did, I think I would pay the blinds installer to install the blinds. It took us way to long because the old sash window frames were wonky.
 
I think you'll find properties requiring a Reno are actually quite high in demand, helped along by all the Reno TV shows recently.

Also, if you need to keeps costs down, best to organize the trades yourself, if you need them at all, rather than add another expense of a project manager to your base costs.

Ace is spot on.
The more run down the more competition you could find.
Many tradies have the same idea as yourself, your only advantage is how much you are willing to pay for it... because there are ALOT of people who just go searching for run-down properties and throw ridiculous offers (... like me :) ), looking for a huge profit post-reno.
If you follow that approach and do your numbers (set your profit goal... estimated sale price -sales costs -estimate reno costs -total purchase price = $??) you can make good money.
Key is to do your research, take your time picking a property to start with to minimise risk and get good experience with the first couple of ventures.

Carl
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You need to be conscious on what you are spending and what value it will add to the property. ideally as an example would be to buy a unit for 250k when the median price in the area is 300k. spend 5k in renos and get it revalued at 300k.

if you have the time and on a tight budget id do what you can yourself, paintings not hard and you can save a fair bit DIY.

if theres batten holders for the lights, maybe chuck a nice new shade over it - go to bunnings or masters for this over a lighting shop ( cheaper )

floorings, not sure don't have much experience with this but think if the layout is simple you can just slap them down on top of tiles.

you might need to pay a tradie to install a kitchen or renovate a bathroom but you would have to think to yourself is the cost of this going to add more value to the house and if so would the value add be more than the actual reno costs.
 
I've renovated a few of my existing IP's over east & in Perth.

I used my property manager to project manage the reno's on all of them.

They gain the quotes and email them to me and I give them a reply email advising them which quote to run with.

Thats as much as I get involved with the renovation.

I hope this helps.

Yeah this is what allens property manager told me. They will organise it all for me. :)
 
Mum shocked me just now

She told me that when she retires (in around 4 years time) that she would like to help organise a Reno for & with me!!!

I'm exited to hear this as we can learn the ropes together!!!

In the past we have talked about doing this way way into the distant future but now she's keen to do it sooner. Wow she really shocked me. I played down my excitement just took it Cooley lol. It would be less stressful doing it together. She will be able to meet with the contractors and have the time to arrange quotes & stuff.

She has started to realise just how much time I spend in my free time researching. I told her I have fun but it's business to me too.

This Reno game is not just a pipe dream anymore for mum. She used to watch all those tv property (reno) shows and wish she could maybe one day do it and now she has the belief it's possible!

So it's something to look forward to the next time I invest in Perth! In the meantime I'll be arranging for potential Brisbane property manager to organise my Reno.

She wanted to hear about ba's too so I told her a bit of stuff i have learnt but not too much so as to scare her or stress her out. She tends to stress about me a bit. Maybe she's not stressing as much about me investing now as she can see how much effort and research I put into it & it's becoming like a business to me!

Woooohooooo awesome news hey!!!
 
A lot of people dont realise that.

Yeah I had no idea they would go to all that trouble! The pm told me that when they do their inspection they let you know where the added value opportunity is and they will organise the quotes the contractors, everything.
 
Yeah I had no idea they would go to all that trouble! The pm told me that when they do their inspection they let you know where the added value opportunity is and they will organise the quotes the contractors, everything.

Yep, like any industry, there are good & bad people.

Just need to find the right ones and put them to work on your team.

Investing's not just about leveraging money but also leveraging other peoples time, knowledge & expertise.
 
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