Stewart and Janelle McClelland wanted to sell their investment property six months ago to start renovations in their family home. They're really glad they waited.
“Six months ago we wanted to sell our investment property in Rosemeadow [south-west of Sydney] to start renovations to our primary residence.
We put a call in to the buyer’s agent who had helped us locate the place in 2009 and he told us to hold tight. The market was about to enter a real boom phase, according to him. Turns out he was right.
We sold the place for $465,500 last week. That figure was around $40,000 more than even the listing agent had been expecting, and a whole lot more than the $268,000 we paid for it in 2009. Needless to say, we were pleasantly surprised.
The place was looking a little the worse for wear when we bought it, but we were told the numbers stacked up. It wasn’t the first time we’d used this buyer’s agent, so we knew that we could definitely put our faith in their research.
Despite the dilapidated state, we managed to rent out the property for two years before making any changes. Then we realised a little bit of work needed to be done before the next tenant moved in.
The shower recess was leaking, the vanity was just about falling apart, the carpet was all worn, it had old wallpaper, a kitchen that was about 45 years old and a massive tree root had cracked the concrete driveway.
We spent about $5,000 putting new carpet in, painted the internals, put a new vanity into the bathroom and I just re-siliconed the shower recess, and did some minor repairs to the kitchen. That helped to tide us over, and we were receiving $380 a week until we got the call from our buyer’s agent a couple of months ago.
He told us that now was a good time to sell. So we had the tenants vacate the property and sank $13,000 into the place. We replaced the kitchen, painted the inside and outside, replaced the doors and renovated the bathroom, then listed it on the market.
What’s driving the kind of growth we saw in the Campbelltown area? I don’t know for sure. Every time I’m down there I see some new developments going up. There are some good transport projects going on down there, too.
But the main reason behind our lucky break last week? That’s probably all down to timing.”
