What You Learn When You Renovate

What You Learn When You RenovateIn case you didn’t read about it on my About Me page, three years ago I decided to purchase an investment property. And what a great decision that was!!! That was sarcasm.

I found this place that was very run down and thus going for a bargain. So cheap. I couldn’t lose on this one, so I thought. I’ve had brain waves before which have not been so successful but this was going to be the start of my entry into property investment.

I consider myself to be a little bit of a handy man. Probably a little bit over confident which is normally the reason I find myself in tricky situations. So I figured with all these problems with this prospective property purchase that I could handle them, fix them myself and in the process saving a fortune and ending up with a decent investment property.

So I make the decision to take the plunge and get into it. Over to the mortgage broker I head and start discussions about an investment loan. I’m going to leave this story for another post but lets just say the hoops I had to jump through for the loan should have been a warning sign (or maybe a stop sign).

Finally the loan was approved and I was able to snap up this bargain. I’m now the proud owner of an investment property – I’ve made it big time – in the big league now. Settlement followed and keys handed over. Time to get to work, I needed tenants in asap to start getting return on this “investment property”.

Now, when I inspected the building I knew there were some problems. There were plumbing problems, roof issues, door lock and window lock issues, and the list continues – no wonder it was a bargain. But nothing too serious that I couldn’t repair myself, it was just going to take some hard work and a bit of time.

In I go with my tool belt and my labour and my knowledge. Not being a professional, it was a struggle to work out the best course of action here. Did I start with the roof, the plumbing or do I go around replacing door & window locks first? I mean it all had to be done, but I just had a moment of hesitation trying to decide where to start. Procrastination kind of got in the way too – big dreams, so much to do.

I eventually got started and with the help from various tradies and services, I finally got the house in a suitable condition to put up for rent. During the process I learnt so much about renovating a house. I learnt about plumbing, roofing, locks, carpets, and even from right at the beginning, investment property finance.

At some point, and I can’t recall when, I came to the realisation that some repairs were beyond my capabilities. I then learnt how to source a tradie or a service and have trust in their abilities and not be worried about being ripped off. Some of these guys got me out of such situations that I felt so thank full for their help and service.

I’ll write about these guys in this blog site, I believe I owe it to them. Stick around for my posts on what I learnt, mistakes I made, tradies that I love and all my other thoughts that I decide to put in writing….

G.