Kitchen Renovations for Rental Properties.

[buyside]

Hi, Looking for peoples opinions on a potential kitchen renovation solution for investment properties.

Currently flat pack kitchens really need to be installed by the owner of the property, which essentially means that person needs some DIY skills and or trade contacts in order to install that type of kitchen. I'm a tradie and considering offering a service to install flat pack Kitchens for people. I would only look at installing the decent quality flat pack as the good stuff is actually really good these days (the rubbish is still rubbish!!). The service would be to offer a like for similar, ie refresh an old kitchen with new cabinetry, benchtop etc, I wouldn't be looking to move walls and change things up a whole heap.

This offering would be at the lower end of the price scale for kitchens and in my opinion be great for investment properties. It would be more than doing it yourself but far less than a kitchen from a joinery shop. Initial thoughts would be that I would assemble the cabinets in my workshop, bring them to site, and install them. The kitchen would only be out of action for a very short period of time and ideally for landlords we could do it in between tenancies.

Keen to get peoples opinions regarding this. Is it a service you would use or consider? what do you see as the pit falls? Any other comments or questions.

Cheers

[jimO]

the pitfalls are that you wont have enough work and will have lots of downtime also spend time waiting on sparkies and plumbers, everyone in the trade knows these guys are the most unreliable

[mrsaneperson]

If youre doing renovations for older properties a lot are not really compatible with the fixed flat pack cabinetry measurements. That can be a big problem.

[donna]

Yes ^^. With seismic movements etc walls are not straight! Here's your first challenge and when we went for an 'off the shelf' type kitchen in our earlier home we came unstuck on $$ as we needs expert joiners to customise areas to minimise the 'bends.

cheers,

Donna

[sidinz]

I wouldn't use such a service.
Flat packs are easy to assemble DIY, then get someone else to install them. If I'm putting in a new kitchen, I'm doing other renos as well and thus will have either a builder or handyman working for me. Easier to get them to install the kitchen along with other tasks than faff around with different tradies and possible down time.