Rendered Block Fence to increase valuation and rentals?

[bjc]

Hi all,
Great forum with awesome posts.

I am a newbie living in Dicky beach suburb QLD. I am considering giving the street view of my current PPOR a face lift by putting in a rendered block fence with auto garage gate and render the external of this brick house.

Now the whole reason for this is to hopefully increase the bank valuation of this property and maximise our rental when we covert this to an investment property. Now is this a crazy idea and am I dreaming?

We have revamped the inside of the house with new kitchen, paints, massive size tiles and pull down walls to open up living area. So now the inside looks modern.

I thought that it might complete the look and feel by doing the frot block fence and making it a secure front yard.

 

[DaveM]

For a rental, rendering the house and fence and auto gate is a lot of expense for not a giant rental return increase. Gate especially, they are not cheap and would add little if any rental return increase, and be an ongoing maintenance cost.

A modern interior and presentable exterior are generally fine for a rental, unless you are at the very top end of town.

 

[skater]

Agree with Dave. None of that will increase your yeild. They might help with a re-val, but I'd be careful that you don't overcapitalise.

 

[Ms Jade]

Sounds like you've done some great work on the inside & I agree with you that the exterior needs to be brought up to the same standard. Potential for rent would depend on the area, so you'd need to determine the cost of the reno compared with likely rent increase.
Nevertheless, I do think that it will add a lot of value to the house. The front of the house is one of the most important factors to increase sale price, and the first impression will determine what sort of category the house falls into (original condition v fully modernised etc).

 

[bjc]

You all are definitely right about the costs of the project. The primary aim is to increase the valuation of the property to eventuate more equity. But we also need to move back down to Brissie.

I think my expectation of possible increase in rental return is not quite realistic. I was hopping to target a middle income demographic rentals by putting up a nice patch for rent in the beach suburb. However, looking around the current rental demographic in my street is not quite there yet. This is our first attempt to buying another PPOR and renting our beloved home out. Hopefully to a more sensible family by offering a middle demographic patch and pricing out the horrible tenants.

Now from the perspective of valuation alone would a 4 bed, 1 bath, 2 car secure carport with front fence be value more than the existing 4 bed, 1 bath and 1 open carport with no front fence?

Advice from here has been great. Thanks all for sharing your experience.

 

[DaveM]

You all are definitely right about the costs of the project. The primary aim is to increase the valuation of the property to eventuate more equity. But we also need to move back down to Brissie.

I would have a talk with a couple of rental agents in the area and also sales agents attached to them and get their opinion on the rental and overall value with/without the facelift.

Sometimes it will value up a lot, sometimes it wont. There may be other things you can do such as landscaping or replacing old windows with new ones which will give far better return for $ spend.

If it cost say $15k to render the house and you got an extra $25k in value or $10-20 per week rent, then its probably not worth it.

 

[pennyk]

Also, keep in mind that render fences attract vandals, even in good areas. you could find it significantly increases your maintenance costs.
I think a secure car park would be of greater value than an open carport.

 

[bjc]

I will do as per Dave's suggestion and talk to the local rental and sales agent who we bought the original house from. Will keep you all posted on their comments. Thanks once again.

 

[bjc]

Spoke to a few local real estate agents and the verdics are:

1. The sales front in Caloundra has been nose diving making it very hard to eventuate enough equity even with the nice face lift. This is something that will work better when it is a sellers Market. Currently there is no buyers in the Market.

2. On rental perspective like was mentioned in this post a secure front gate will do little to none in rental returns. Money would be better spend on converting to a double bath rooms. With should see about $10 to $15 per week increase.

3. The nice interial is definitely a selling point for tenants that want a modern house that is close to the beach. There are good number of these out there. But would only see about high $300s to low $400s per week rent.

Need to think about this and might need to pull the pin on this one for the moment.

I would love to hear from you all on this one. What do you think?
Please

 

[RenoTeam]

I'd pull the pin, till you decide to sell it. Maybe put up a carport instead of a garage for tenants, but other than that, we'd just make sure the outside is neat and tidy

 

[bjc]

Thanks RenoTeam!

Yap this is what we going to do. Tidy up the front and extend the current 1.5 car carport concrete slab to 2 cars (one in front of the other).

Invest the rest of the money into converting our 1.5 bathroom into a two bathroom house. Giving us the 4 bed, 2 baths and 2 car stats. These seems to be the most of valued facilities from both a sales and rental perspective.