Casula
When you’re looking for a home to buy, it pays to have a bit of foresight. Looking past a dated interior can save you a considerable amount of money if you’re willing to live without the atmosphere of an ultra modern home.
If you’re trying to save some pennies when you’re buying a property, try to visualise a dated interior in a different light – put your furnishings in the room, and think about cost effective ways you can update the interior without having to outlay huge amounts of money.
There’s a myriad of ways in which you can achieve a more attractive interior in your home including:
- Painting interior walls is the easiest way of making a home lighter, brighter and less dated. Do it yourself and you could achieve a new look and feel for only a few hundred dollars (depending on the size of the area you’re painting and type of paint you’re using).
- Benchtops and tiles of the 70’s can be ghastly, but there are options for painting these too. It may be a short term fix, but it is effective and can save you a fortune if you’re just after a more modern colour effect.
- Carpets can date a home, if there are hardwood timber floors underneath, you can give the property a new lease on life by ripping out the old carpet and polishing the floors. Whilst this may be more expensive, it will almost certainly add value. If the sellers haven’t done it, then they haven’t capitalised on a potential feature of the home. Good news for buyers!
- Appliances such as stoves and ovens can be picked up at very reasonable prices if you don’t need the best of the best on the market. Check electrical, plumbing and gas fittings before updating these, but it will be worth it if you like to use modern appliances.
For buyers, looking past a dated interior of a property can save you thousands of dollars when compared to a property that has all the modern trimmings. You can either update the interior as you go and capitalise on the potential of the property, or use the money you’ve saved on other things!
Happy house hunting!