Yahoo Finance Dad makes $80,000 profit in just two weeks after simple renovation: ‘Anyone can do it’
Kurtis revealed the quick fixes he did that caused his property to sell just one hour after it was listed.
An Australian dad has revealed how a few simple renovations can drastically improve your home’s value.
While that might sound obvious to anyone with a home, Kurtis Fraus was able to increase his Adelaide property’s worth by $85,000 in just two weeks.
The 33-year-old told Yahoo Finance anyone could replicate his method and you just needed to be on the lookout for those quick and easy fixes.
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“Do some of the work yourself,” Fraus said. “It’s not that hard. And don’t go over the top with renovations if you want to just ‘flip’ the property.”
Fraus had been living in the Salisbury North home in Adelaide for 12 years and put it on the market in 2021. He originally bought it for $264,000 but the agent listed it for $300,000.
Fraus told Yahoo Finance that was a “terrible return” and he was hoping for a bit more, considering he’d owned the property for more than a decade. So, he took matters into his own hands - literally.
A renderer by trade, as well as the owner of a startup sparkling water company, he painted the whole of the outside of the home as well as every wall and ceiling to give it a fresh, new look.
“I’m happy to get my hands dirty. And it’s easy work, anyone can do it,” he said.
Fraus got contractors to install new floors and carpet, and he put an air conditioner in. All up, he spent just $5,000 on the renovations.
The dad went back to the agent, who took new pictures of the property and chucked it back on the market for $385,000. The property was sold to an interstate buyer within just one hour of it being online.
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Fraus said he was “surprised” his $5,000 renovations were able to increase his property value by $85,000.
“The cheap reno did wonders for an old cream brick house,” he told Yahoo Finance. “The purchaser valued the new makeover for his investment. Saved him time and money. I’ll be doing this again soon.”
Ways to increase your property value
South Australian couple Emily and Mitch Clohesy watched both of their parents transform houses while they were growing up and have come up with some easy methods that everyday Aussies can use when trying to spruce up their homes.
1. Give it a go
"If you have no experience renovating but you want to renovate your house, my biggest tip is to just give it a go. Jump on YouTube, watch a video on how to rip a bathroom out and prepare it. It's not as hard as you think,” Emily explained to Yahoo Finance.
"If you stuff it up, you'll always learn something in the process and know better for the next time, and all you have to do is rip it out [and] start again. Don't let fear of getting it wrong hold you back."
2. Shop around
"To make it cost-effective, Marketplace, Gumtree - those types of sites - are your best friends,” she added.
“You can almost find everything that you need, material-wise, like timber or tiles or tap fixtures - depending on what style you're going for - but pretty much anything you want, you can find on a marketplace these days. And those prices are always negotiable so never pay what someone is asking, always negotiate.”
3. Old is new
"People are more conscious of the environment and I also think people love reclaimed features in homes,” Emily said. “If you look at a lot of new homes these days, they are pretty clinical, they are boring, there's no character. If you incorporate some reclaimed items - like, for the current one, we're doing the silo [that] came out of the Holden factory. These things create character, create talking points and make them stand out from the crowd without spending a fortune.”
4. Paint is sometimes all you need
The South Australian echoed what Fraus found when it came to renovations.
"A really quick way to spruce up a space is just to paint it. Painting is cheap, it's quick and anyone can do it and it really freshens up an entire space,” she said.
“Painting can change the whole look of a house so, even if you have an outdated cream brick house, just painting your bricks white will bring it into today's modern society.”
5. Spend money on the important things
While homeowners would want to save money on many aspects of the renovation process, Emily said sometimes you had to fork out a lot on the stuff that mattered.
"When renovating for profit, you need to think, not of your own personal style, but what is going to appeal to the most amount of buyers,” she said.
“Keep your designs, selections and colour palettes simple. Bring in pops of colour here and there in your home styling. Put your money into areas that sell homes, like updated kitchens and bathrooms."
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