My thread.

[Ivanhoe]

Here's the post from another thread and I'll post some pictures next as promised.

My recent great small deal in Christchurch (bought two weeks into MIT programme with Dean Letfus):
2 br unit, close to city, very run down, motivated vendor overseas, listed with RE agent.
Purchase price: $106.000, (asking neg over 99.000) 10.000 deposit, 90% finance, bank waived LMI - good on them!
Renovations (10% of purchase) $10.000 (or thereabouts)
Total: $116.000
New valuation: $165.000
Rented today for $220 p.w.
Yield: 9.9%
Cash on cash return: infinite as deposit refinanced 100%+ and is about to be used on another deal.

[Ivanhoe]

Main view - living

Here are some pictures, generally they show original condition of the unit, how it looked like while being done up (scary stuff!) and the final result... (Pictures are around 200k and it's worth waiting for them to load, believe me!)

Main view:


(note Ron Hoy Fong's color scheme, even "feature wall", thanks, Ron! )

[Ivanhoe]

Kitchen

Kitchen:

[Ivanhoe]

Bathroom:

[Ivanhoe]

Shower


this one is my favorite!

[Ivanhoe]

[Ivanhoe]

Benchtop and kitchen cabinets



piece of paper - description of Ron' color scheme for painter.

[Ivanhoe]

bedroom

[Ivanhoe]

[Ivanhoe]

I'll start another thread and will try to write about this experience and I also need to say "thanks" to everyone who helped me (and that's HEAPS of people!) - I'll post link here after I'll start it as it will take a while to write about everything I wanted.

[Winston001]

Well I'm impressed. Did you do all the work yourself? Great job!

[Ivanhoe]

Thanks Winston, I would love to say that I did not lift a finger exept to sign S&P agreement and write couple of cheques (that was the original idea, to be lateral and DDIY - DON"T do it yourself!) but I had to do some things here...
My input was ment to be: get a deal, create a VISION how it will look like, share my vision with my team, spend couple of hour superwising, pay my team, reap the rewards.

Unfortunately I had to do couple of things myself: project management, cleaning (JIF can do miracles to old doorhandles!) and gardening (spraying, weedmats and nuggets), take junk to the tip.

I did all of it out of necessity rather than by choice - could not find people who would do it, but will try to outsource as much as I can next time.

Couple of reasons why: I'm PATHETIC with any handyman type of things, anything I do with my hands self-destructs in a very short period of time; I'm not do-upper or DIY guy or anything, MY GAME is property investment or rather: getting to financial freedom on property vehicle; it's bad leverage of my time - i could not continue to watch the market with same intensity (but bought another two places while doing this up) and I caught cold while loading trailer with crap!
So when I hear that people choose to do work for me and instead of me, have proper tools and skillbase and will spend three time less time than I will and will give 3 time better quality $15, 20, 30 or even $50 per hour is a screaming bargain!

To summarise: the job is great because I did NOT do it myself!

[Ivanhoe]

One of the lessons I learned and trying to stick to: "Money follows MANAGEMENT". Note that money does not follow your ability to paint walls, rip carpets off, sand floors without a glitch or do plumbing.
And I'm thinking: what should I do to minimise my time and energy input and maximize return?
The answer is: do LESS work, do MORE and BETTER management and money will follow!

[NZGEMS]

I am with you Ivan on not wanting to do the work, personally it is not for me, BUT I see nothing wrong with it if it is what you enjoy, I have a number of friends who do houses up for a living, they just love it and there is absolutely nothing wrong with that, they seem to get enough deals, have the next one lined up to start when they finish the last one, one person I spoke to last week was saying he does up one in a couple of months and makes about $50k a time, he is happy with that and it is not too bad a yearly wage remember especially when you think you are doing what you love and in your own time. Still leaves you free to do others things you may love doing too. $300k a year is more than most of the top CEO's earn and I bet they work alot harder and live a much more stressful life too.

Robyn

My husband has just started on his first house last week, and may have now found the next one he will do after this this past week too, finishing due diligence on MOnday and will go in with the offer after that, I like to do things that way, do the due diligence first then offer cash unconditional, often helps me get what I want.

[kane656]

Hi Ivan

I like your style of DDIY! As much as I like to think that I'm a whiz around stuff like that, I'm not. Maybe I will get into it (kind of runs in the blood!).

The floors came out great! Did you just get them polished or is it a totally new floor? Actually I like the whole package. What was the timeframe on this project? Oh and what street is your property on?

I guess this is a classic case of making a 10% yeld deal rather than finding it. Inspirational!

K