In the virtual world of Renovation Survivor I have to admit it’s been a little quiet. In the physical world it’s been a little busier.

Instead of blogging I’ve been busy presenting at the Melbourne Home Buyers’ Show on pitfalls to avoid and ways to add value, as well as Archicentre and Home Ideas Centre seminars. I’ve also been madly looking for an investment property ripe for reno AND doing a little extra reno here at home.

I also recently spoke to Deborah Cameron on Sydney ABC radio - and the interview and chats with callers is available here.

Those who’ve read my book or seen me present a seminar know that I don’t believe luck is a management strategy. However as I sign off for the year I do want to wish you the energy for good renovation preparation - an educated homeowner will ultimately be a happy one - as well as a bit of luck as the icing on the cake!

You can hear what we chatted about here. If you want to engage someone to do such a design concept for you, you could try Archicentre. It offers a Renovation Design Concept service nationally.

Kitchen renovation tips from RENOVATION SURVIVOR on Vimeo.

You might remember from my first Neighbour from hell post that I said the challenge would be making sure the built version of my neighbour’s renovation complied with the consent conditions.

Ah how prescient.

Recently I was moved to write to the council about this:

• Clause 21 - that there be louvres to the windows in the western rear wall designed, for privacy reasons, to be translucent and with restricted opening. No such louvres have been installed.
• Clause 22 - that window 9 is to be of fixed and obscure glass and that window 10 to have fixed obscure glass louvers to prevent a line of sight into the master bedroom of my house. The windows that have been installed are clear and openable.
• In addition, clause 26 states that the southern wall of bedroom 3 is to be setback a minimum of 900mm from the side boundary. The southern wall has been built within about 780mm of the boundary. (Note that this setback is in the building code because of fire regulations.)

After futile discussions with the neighbour regarding the breaches, I wrote to the council. Nothing has happened yet about the windows, but this week part of the recently built upper storey addition was rebuilt in order to put the wall in the right place.

The change has lots of repercussions for the surrounding elements - flashings, the roof below - not to mention holding up the works and adding a few thousand dollars more to the project.

So much effort, time and money that might have been saved by a little attention to detail.

The message? Check up on details - if you’re the renovator OR the neighbour of one.

(The bag-of-a-fag-pack cost assessment is a critical first step though…) You can have a listen here.

(It goes for about 10 minutes - and ignore the weird flip4mac thing that’s appeared in the 45 second video insert!)

In the three budgeting steps we looked at before you worked out what you wanted and roughly how much that would cost. It’s now time to match that up with how much you should spend if you don’t want to over-capitalise.

Valuer Peter Hay of Hay Property Group advises renovators concerned about over-capitalising to think again if the projected cost of their renovation work is more than one third the current value of their property. This is particularly the case if the renovation is not going to add significantly to the footprint of the house.

Archicentre general manager David Hallett agrees that what you spend on your renovation isn’t necessarily what you get back. “It’s pretty difficult to do an extensive renovation and get your money back immediately,” he commented earlier in 2007 .

The common areas where people tend to over-capitalise are bathrooms and kitchens. “You can spend a lot of money on expensive tapware but at the end of the day what really sells a house is location, location, location,” Archicentre’s Hallett said.

Timing is also important. Peter Hay advises that in a good rising market you might get 90 per cent of the renovation cost back in a few years. However “in a flat market, you might get 50 or 60 per cent back,” he said.

One tactic is to approach a couple of the local agents, show them some pictures of your house, current floor plan and then ask them what they think it could be worth if you renovated it. Ask them the typical things that buyers will want (and will pay for).

Mind the gap

Basically, you’re going to get an idea of what renovated houses in your suburb are selling for (just sold and on the market), to get an idea of what your end product’s going to be worth, the gap between what you paid and the current prices should be roughly what your renovation should cost - in today’s dollars.

As one renovator I interviewed for the book put it: “If how much you’ve paid for the property plus what the job’s going to cost is more than what you can then sell the property for, or what someone else is selling a similar property for, then you’re over capitalising. It means that either you’ve overpaid in the first place for the property or your renovation is too expensive.”