• Cherie Barber
• April 30, 2018
• No Comments

How to boost your home value

Renovation Queen Cherie Barber mentors homeowner Liz on how to boost her home value cost effectively and in minimal time, helping to attract more tenants.

TRANSCRIPTION

[00:00:01] Welcome back. How would you like to add thousands of dollars in value to your home with just a few simple changes? Renovation for Profit’s Cherie Barber has given one lucky homeowner the insider tips and reporter Shaun White was there to share them with us.

Some good tips and tricks guys. The amazing thing is it just takes a few simple steps to go from drab to fab without breaking the bank. Homeowner Liz has been struggling to find tenants for her tired two-storey property in Minto in Sydney’s western suburbs. Reno Queen Cherie Barber is here to help with ideas to give her place a facelift on a tight budget. It’s vital to make a good first impression with street frontage. Taking two trees out will open up the house to the street and costs just $300. A modern color scheme will set you back $1000 and two buckets of paving paint for $200 will take that fresh look all the way down the drive.

[00:00:59] When you’re focusing on a cosmetic renovation you’ve got to focus on the big areas that add the most value and they’re kitchens and bathrooms. Tile paint, kitchen counter resurfacing and a few new doorknobs will give the heart of the home a facelift for $300 bucks.

[00:01:14] So Liz I know you thought you would have to get rid of every tile in your bathroom. The good news is we don’t. Are you open to me keeping some walls and maybe getting rid of some others through Tile Paint?

[00:01:25] Sounds great.

[00:01:26] Refreshing rather than ripping out the wacky bathroom will save you thousands.

[00:01:28] One of the biggest problems in this property is the carpet, it’s making this whole property look smaller so we’ll be installing some timber waterproof floorboards right throughout, so they’ve got one consistent flooring right throughout the property. Flooring has one of the biggest impacts in the home. Cherie’s advice is a floating floor boards, a fraction of the cost of full timber floors.

[00:01:49] Last but not least lighting and fixtures.

[00:01:52] So Liz the good thing is all your bedrooms don’t need much painting flooring and just stay on top of them. Like these pictures and fittings were quite dated as well. So you just want to make sure.

[00:02:06] The reno results are stunning.

[00:02:07] Render can cost tens of thousands. So opt for external painting to freshen up your façade instead. You can pick up resurfacing and tile paints in a huge range of colours from your local hardware store. Floating floorboards are easy to install yourself. New waterproof varieties are inexpensive and hard wearing so they don’t wrap and buckle. Hate your old tiles? A few tubs of tile paint can make it feel like a whole new bathroom for just two hundred dollars. Extending your color scheme outside looks great but regular painting also extends the life of your decks and balconies. So Liz, you’ve got the color scheme spot on. You have this beautiful light gray paint, you’ve got this gorgeous feature wall. So this paint scheme will last the test of time.

[00:03:04] See how everything feels so much fresher purely through the power of paint.

[00:03:09] After learning the ropes from Cherie, Liz took on the renovation alone and was surprised by how much she could do with her money. The bathroom was the cheapest room to renovate. It cost less than $300 and looks fantastic.

[00:03:26] More than half of Liz’s reno budget was spent on flooring and painting inside and outside of the house. “The DIY update on the 1970s home was sorely needed but will also pay off” Liz said.

[00:03:40]$15,000. I’m confident that she’ll double her money get a $30,000 uplift. She won’t see a huge increase in the rental return. Probably an extra $20 a week but the biggest thing now is that she will have no problem getting a tenant and keeping them for the long term.