RENOVATING FOR PROFIT: 3 TIPS ON DESIGN TRENDS AND HOW TO USE THEM

Whether you are working on renovating your own home or an investment property, there will be a lot of decisions to be made on the design of the new space, before and during the project. And even if you are renovating for your own home which you know you are likely to sell within a few years, you will have to take into account sellability and appeal.

Obviously, depending on the length of the project, there will be many new items coming on the market that could potentially be used in your project.

So how do you decide what is going to be used, and what not?

“Where is the balance between appealing to the wider audience and keeping a product original?”

When renovating for profit you have two options: put together a Joe Bloggs’ standard space that ends up looking and feeling like many others on the market, or think about design to create something extraordinary and inspiring, which stands out and gives you a higher profit. If you are serious about maximising profits you should definitely avoid the former.

If you decide to veer away from ordinary, (and you should), you need to know how much you can push your boundaries in order to ensure that your product is unique and stand out AND still appeals to the majority of the target audience (those who will be looking at that property when it goes onto the open market).

There are many ways to get inspiration to create an appealing space and stay on budget. I have clients who have gone to visit show homes (one of the newly built homes that have come on the market recently) to see what developers do and get inspiration to make sure they stay on budget but still have a cutting edge product.

They have found that while the first couple of properties looked modern and somehow justified why a buyer would want to buy them, looking at a further number of new properties brought about a different experience. Show home properties seem to conform to certain standards and they end up looking quite all the same: too plain and uninspiring.

Renovating for profit always aims at having a final product that stands out from the competition whatever the preferred exit is: sale, let, or multilet, serviced accommodation and so on. Obviously that needs to be achieved while staying on budget and appealing to the wider audience.

So where is the balance between the Joe Bloggs’ standard renovation and the outstanding one?

how to negotiate amongst design trends within the interiors for higher profit concept.

Having run a few renovations for profit projects, and knowing how difficult it can be to keep on budget while staying unique, and to stay top of all the new trends while appealing to the wider audience, I decided to give you a three tips on how you can navigate your way onto creating something that stands out and gives you better returns.

TIP NUMBER ONE: know your target market

Knowing who is going to be the person interested in purchasing or renting your final product is essential to knowing what to do with it on a design level.

Targeting a first time buyer is totally different from targeting a retired couple. And targeting an extremely wealthy family comes into a different field than targeting a working class audience.

Not only the design, but also the presentation and staging of your final product need to be tailored to the people you wish to attract and they need to captivate them to push them to offer as close as possible to your desired price.

For more expensive rooms, those that are costly to renovate, such as kitchens and bathrooms, the balance between trend and sellability is even more important as the fixture and fittings will be sold with the house and have the power to make or break the deal for your target market.

“It can be difficult to keep on budget while staying unique”

A way of achieving a good balance between appeal and trend is to have a classic design base and chose trendy accessories to bring it in line with current trends. Bearing in mind that “classic” does not mean “traditional”. Another way to achieve that balance is trhough “eclecticism” because within an eclectic concept there is always a little bit of room for movement.

TIP NUMBER TWO: have a plan for overall design

When renovating a property there must be an overall look that you aim at and there must be consistency throughout the property (including outside space).

A master view of the overall feel and look of the project does not mean that everything and every room needs to match. On the contrary is a way of giving each room its unicity while retaining a master palette or a master feel and achieving a curated and cohesive palette and ambience.

A master view is the part of the planning that will allow you to decide wether to incorporate or discard specific interior design elements. I have seen interiors where the absence of a master view has lead to a mismatch of design elements that has caused the overall project outcome to be unappealing and unsellable: each element in isolation looks really outstanding but as an overall does not work.

Also the absence of a plan bring to a process of to and fro which will have you waste time - and therefore money - and will potentially drive your project over budget.

TIP NUMBER THREE: have a timeframe for project and contingency budget

Timeframe and budgeting are the pillars of renovating for profits.

As far as time frame is concerned, a project must have: work schedules, Gantt charts, and time contingency allowances. Without these is difficult to keep track of what needs to happen when, and how to negotiate any unexpected event that is thrown at you during project execution.

A time frame is essential and in order to make a project profitable because there will be expenses that come with the owning of the property itself, even while inhabitable during a project (taxes, mains supplies, cost of money). It is good to know how long each phase will take. If you have done a project yourself before, or if you have some expertise in the field, you will have an idea. However, if you do not hold that expertise or experience, ask your trades as they will be able to give you clues.

Once you have a timeframe for the subtasks within the project, having a gantt chart allows you to not only monitor progress, but also communicate to your trades about wether the project is on target or not and, if not, understand why and try to reduce any further delays (as for how best to interact with trades, I will write another post on the subject as this is not the right one for the purpose).

When thinking about contingency, people tend to think about disaster striking. It does not have to be that at all.

In fact a contingency could be driven by a positive event. For example, you might find some amazing original tiles on the floor keeping which will affect the desirability of the property. In order to keep them however you need to change the design slightly and you have therefore to purchase slightly more expensive wall tiles that complement the new finding well.

For example, a new kitchen design that incorporates some original mustard tiles found under a self levelling compound, drove the kitchen design of a late project of mine from an original blue contemporary geometric tile to a slightly more expensive tile that complemented the mustard floor finding.

“A contingency could be driven by a positive event. For example, you might find some amazing original tiles on the floor keeping which will affect the desirability of the property. ”

Moodboard_Kitchen adapted to original floor.jpg

IN CONCLUSION

Putting together curated and coherent interiors doesn’t have to be more expensive than a bland and uninspiring interiors. However, it can be daunting and sometimes might feel difficult or impossibly outside our abilities.

Nevertheless, it would be foolish not to try and get the most from our investments, so my advice is: do your very best to ensure that your returns are as high as they can possibly be, whatever your strategy and whatever your experience. If you feel you are stuck uncertain on how to proceed, I always offer free consultation, and you can book it right now. Or you get in touch via email. Either way I would be more than happy to have a chat to try help you with no strings attached.

Valeria RomanoOctober 14, 20191 Comment