Few things in life are as exciting as buying a house. After years of hard work, you are close to achieving that dream of having a home you can call your own. Never mind that the house you’re eyeing has already seen some years.
After all, the price of the house is a steal compared to what you would be spending if you had an entirely new house built from the ground up. Or is it?
For all you know, you could be spending a lot of money on costly renovation traps, which you could have easily avoided.
Many first-time homeowners are often too excited about the prospect of buying a house that they tend to overlook a number of things about it. Some are just too overwhelmed by the beautiful design or the sheer size of the house that they almost immediately snap it up. However, when the excitement wears off and they have spent some time living in their newly-acquired home, they begin to notice little things that they never saw before, such as tiny cracks in the walls or plumbing that do not work quite as well as expected.
Eventually, they will realise they are caught in costly renovation traps, which means they will have no choice but to set aside a budget for renovation costs.
Needless to say, anyone who is looking to buy a home needs to keep their emotions or excitement in check and actively work to spot costly renovation traps before buying a home. Here are some useful tips that can hopefully help you avoid incurring high renovation costs.
1. Conduct a professional property inspection
By hiring a professional building inspector, you will be able to find out the real current condition of the property you’re eyeing. In a property inspection report, you can expect to get details about the house’s structural integrity as well as potential costly renovation traps you could face once you buy the house. A property inspection doesn’t just protect you from unpleasant surprises. It can also be a negotiating tool that could help you bring the price of the property down, especially when you highlight possible renovation costs .
It is also recommended that you be present when the building inspector conducts the property inspection. You would want to see the potential costly renovation traps with your own eyes.
2. Choose an apartment unit in a smaller block
If you’re buying an apartment instead of house, there are certain aspects of the property that an inspector couldn’t possibly check, like the lifts or the apartments next to yours. If this is the case, it is advisable to choose a unit in a smaller building, since you get a better feel of the surroundings, like the level of noise, for instance.
3. Make sure the building has a fire safety certification
When buying an apartment, check first if the block is certified for fire safety. Unless you’re willing to prepare a budget for renovation costs for a fire safety certification yourself, choose a unit in a building that already has one. You wouldn’t really want to be spending $15,000-$20,000 on renovation costs if the block doesn’t have a fire safety certification yet.
4. Check for rising damp and asbestos
This is absolutely important if you’re buying a house that was built a long time ago. Rising damp easily affects houses that were built in the late 19th century onwards. A house that was built between 1920 to 1985, meanwhile, could have asbestos. Effectively detecting asbestos could be tough though, since it requires that a home be ripped up, and that means high renovation costs. A good rule of thumb would be to assume that if the house has fibro, it must have asbestos, even though some fibro materials do not contain the cancer-causing mineral.
5. Know the local council code requirements
Naturally, you would want to turn the house you’re buying into the home you really want. However, there are council codes that could prevent you from doing major renovations on the house even if you’ve already prepared a budget for renovation costs. You have to find out first what you can do to a house without asking permission from anybody before closing the deal.
Getting renovations done is an unavoidable part of being a homeowner. When you own a home, preparing a budget for renovation costs is but normal. However, we all have to be smart about it in order to avoid renovation costs that could get higher in the long run. We hope the tips above can help you out in that regard.
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