Maisonette in Elizabeth Downs

Late November Joel and I negotiated a contract for a maisonette (semi-detached bungalow) for $87,000. It was on the market for $80,000, but as this is way below the norm and general market value for maisonettes in the area (usually around $120-140k) we offered more to secure. I believe we weren't quite the highest offer, but we were unconditional, so we just got it.

The area is low in socio-economic status - it would have originally been an SA Housing Trust (government building) property when it was built in about 1960.

Hopefully the attachment still works when you read this:
http://www.firstnational.com.au/?pagecall=property&propertyID=2199760

Originally the renovation was just going to be superficial - paint, patching, new kitchen, sanded floors and tiling in the bathroom - about $10k to do nicely. However, we found the house was badly infested with termites (white ants) and had completely eaten the wall between the dining area and main bedroom. We pulled plasterboard off the wall to see the damage and this is what we found:

The ants were in their millions and crawling around. *Shiver*. Therefore, we proposed to knock out the wall...

Rather than erect a new wall in the same spot, we decided to use this to our advantage and create open plan living (which people love these days) and put up a new wall in the old lounge to make a corridor and bedroom.

We also had to cough up $1188 to treat the termites (apparently the termite guy had to actually get under the floorboards which is a space about 40-50cm high and poison their nests under the house -yuck).

That changed our budget to about $11-12k (or blew it out that much if you like).

We started the destruction stage in mid December I reckon, and Joel and I were working full time at this point - so just renovating in our evenings and weekends. Joel took some time off from Christmas, and I've had the past two weeks off work. We have now just about finished (besides some last painting jobs that we couldn't do today because it's 42 degrees outside today!) and had some agents to look around.

Joel and I had estimated a sale price of between $130-145k. One agent thought $155,000 and another we saw thought more conservatively - $135-140,000. The second agent however works on a fixed price as opposed to percentage based, so you can imagine why they may have undercut slightly (though I think this is around where we would get). The first agent I reckon just was trying to upsell to gain our business I reckon. We haven't decided yet. We kind of want to go with another agent that gets us another 20,000 Qantas frequent flyer points - one step closer to another trip to England!

Here are some photos of the process!

We decided to furnish the house because we think it will sell quicker.

Here are the numbers:

Purchase $87,000
Stamp duty $5,000
Renovations $12,000
Holding costs (based on 6 months) $4,000
Selling costs $5000
TOTAL $113,000

Anything above the total we sell for is a profit.

We spent a month (and this isn't even full time) and we are now finished and ready for the next!