RENOVATE OR DETONATE?

Quite often we can form an emotional attachment with a piece of furniture, car or house and cannot clearly see an effective strategy to profit from it.Many are the chairs,tables and sideboards that I have purchased cheaply or acquired for nothing thinking that I would make a handsome profit but turned out not to be. Research has shown that buying a property and renovating the kitchen, bathroom and adding perhaps another room then selling does not always realise a profit (excepts in a rapidly rising market). If just a good clean, paint and cosmetic makeover is done then a quick turnaround profit can be made. The reasons for this are that buyers have other ideas from yours and want to add their own personal touches so if you can reveal the potential of the project then sometimes this is all that is required.With a decent piece of furniture you may have to allow a day to strip, a day to repair and a day to finish say 20 hours. If you reckoned on at least $20 an hour plus materials then that's $400-500-.Commercial rates are $40-50 an hour. Your time has to be worth something or else you give the piece a quick clean and polish, plus minor repairs and send it on it's way.Also you can see that a piece has to be valuable to spend too much time on it.So the lesson to be learned from this is to think long and hard about what you want to achieve from your project before even starting.After a while you will know approximately how long it will take to finish a piece but it always takes longer than you anticipate because once you start you perhaps will find what others have bodged and faked
that you have to make good.