Buyer advocate comments:
The clients brief was very challenging, however I rise to any challenge and this makes my role even more interesting and rewarding when I find the ideal property or a ‘diamond in the rough” like this beauty, which was a 3 bed, 1 bathroom cottage to the front & a council approved 2016 built 60m2 2 bed, 1 bath granny flat to the rear.
The property was a little run down at the front, but spacious with high ceilings & some character, and rear granny flat in good condition built in 2016 & just needed a major clean & painting throughout & the whole property required considerable cleaning up, removal of rubbish, new fencing etc & there was no privacy btw front house & rear granny flat. However I knew the potential this property had & at the right price, this would be an outstanding high yielding, double income investment property.
I arranged and provided a high level of detail, reports and stats for this property, suburb and location to the client prior to the Auction, which made his decision super easy to place this on the top of the list of properties at the time.
I had also arranged quotes all of the following: from Builders for a major renovation plus a basic renovation so we could weigh up the costs along with also obtaining written advice from a local town planner that a duplex would be allowable on the site, even though it was a smaller block size, but typical for the quality location only 1 x street over from shops, café’s & popular picturesque Lambton Park.
I even had duplex designs available to suit the block with quotes from Builders so providing every angle, every option & highest & best use for the property to the client.
The property was to go to Auction as they were not prepared to sell prior as it was a deceased estate and I placed my Auction Buying cap on, dressed to impress, arrived early and stared down the competition at the Auction, and commenting out loud as I walked through the home amongst many other buyers that jokingly, could the wobbly floor boards be caused by termites?
I let the lower bidders fizzle out & I came in confident & strong towards the end, bidding against a developer & another investor & was the successful purchaser letting my experience of Auction tactics win & was able to negotiate a longer 60 x day settlement to allow more time to obtain finance & given the property was vacant & the fact that I had a very good rapport with the selling agent, I was also able to negotiate early access to the property to carry out some renovations which allowed the selling agents property manager to advertise for tenants early & we had two lots of tenants move in on settlement day so had income flow from day 1.
I co-ordinated & project managed a basic renovation on both the front house & rear granny flat which included many repairs, professional painting of both house & granny flat, new carpets, new taps, new oven & stove, repairs, privacy screening & fencing between house & granny flat, new fencing to the rear, new paved paths, clotheslines to each properties, letterboxes etc & providing a new separate side entry to granny flat, removal of a few trees & rubbish which this gave both properties a whole new lease on life.
Original rental appraisals were $500/wk for front house & $475/wk for rear granny flat.
After only spending under $20,000 on the improvements & renovations & repairs between exchange & settlement, we managed to lease the front house at $700/wk & rear granny flat for $525/wk from day 1 & new tenants moved in to the granny flat 7 x months later & are now paying $550/wk providing a total now of $1,250/wk or $5,416/mth covering the mortgage payments.
A recent appraisal on the property after only 6 x months shows a healthy uplift already, as the property is now worth around $1.150m+ after the basic renovations & improvements were completed.
Recent appraisals on a 210m2 two storey 4 bed, 3 bath, sgle garage attached “Hamptons Style” duplex design if built, came in at around $1.4m each at an approx. build cost of around $1,050,000 & these would lease out at around $900 - $1,000/wk each if held but will provide a very healthy profit when the client decides to build as the total outlay would be around $2m to $2.1m incl original property purchase, Stamp duty, other purchase costs & renovation costs & with sales at $1.4m each ($2.8m total) this would provide a very healthy profit of around $700,000.
I truly love to find these unique properties and utilise my 30 x years of property experience in educating and guiding others in Building unique property portfolio’s.
Kevin Mason
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