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Doing up a bathroom for buy to let. New investors out of pocket by learning from the "old school" investors. By Lady Lea
We live in a throwaway society, meaning we are quick to throw things away, through personal choice, rather than because the object is actually broken or of no use to us any more.
More and more of us are investing in property since the launch of the "buy to let" mortgages a few years ago. With this investing comes a massive amount of our "throwaway" attitude, learned by reading books on tips and tricks, and from the media, but also by following in the footsteps of other so called "experienced" investors.
By striving to have the best looking property, or most neutral property we are forgetting a few key points. This "throwaway" attitude is having an impact on our pocket and environment.
When we buy a property, we look to make it more appealing to our tenants, or to resell it. In doing this, most of us follow what everyone else does, like replacing bathrooms, re-tiling and replace internal door and external windows.
What we are doing, by "following" other investor's examples, is forgetting a few key points.
Out of Pocket
By following the path of other investors, we are spending more money than we need too. It costs us approx £200 to buy a bathroom, and £100 - £400 to have it fitted and re-tiled.
There is a simple way to save money. Don't replace it unless it is damaged.
Tips to inspect and evaluate replacing a bathroom.
• When looking at the bathroom, check to see if it has any cracks, scrapes, scratches or holes in it. If not, you may not need to replace it. Sharp edges need to be fixed, and scratches can hold bacteria. Some bathrooms can be repaired for less than a replacement cost.
• Look carefully at the "dirt". Is it scale that you can remove with simple de-scale spray? Scale can be white, green, yellow or brown, and is usually found near where the water runs, and around the plughole. Most household de-scalers for toilet de-scalers can rid of this in a couple of hours.
• Look at the taps. Has the colour come off them or are they covered in scale and toothpaste? Would fitting a new set of taps make the bath or sink look as good as new? Look closer imagine it. How much work and money can you save?
• Look at the whole room, is the bath-panel making the bath look worse than it is? If you fitted a nice panel, would the bathroom look much better?
• Examine around the tiles. Is the grout dirty and stained? It is likely to get like this every few years (or more frequent if a tenant dyes their hair), and cost you to re-grout, or replace tiles. If you could find a waterproof paint, and paint around the bath in a co-ordinating colour, could you make it look quite fresh, and save yourself ongoing maintenance?
• Examine the tiles themselves. Are any cracked or chipped? Are they very dated in appearance? Is it really worth replacing tiles with more tiles, when things seem to go out of fashion so fast? Try some waterproof paint, as above, give it a co-ordinating line around the edge, to match the suite.
Most people seem to be under the impression that we all prefer a white, neutral bathroom suite. We think that by changing the suite from green, brown, blue or yellow will "add value" to our property. I think this is something we have been "made" to believe, by estate agents, letting agents and other investors, as they have looked at a very dirty, coloured bathroom and say that it needs modernising. We can actually modernise it and keep it there.
Look at the rental point of view. If your area has high demand, your house is in good tidy clean condition, and the bathroom is a sunset yellow, with oak floor, cream waterproof paint, with a matching line, co-ordinating the bathroom suite, is that really going to put off your new tenant? Or is it just our pre-judgment, learned by listening to other "out of date" investors who have money to burn.
