Sometimes we have to do for ourselves what we recommend to others and quite recently I found myself struggling to take my own advice! It’s all to easy to recommend an improvement here and an improvement there to enable the well located sows ear become the perfectly situated silk purse of your dreams. The reality is exactly what that particular idiom suggests. You can’t make a solid chair out of poor quality wood. 
Prior to renovating your resale project, if you think that the builders quotation is incredibly reasonable it probably is. You need to know that any renovative costs are genuine before you’ve offered on your property. Talk to contractors, get quotes, choose the styles of windows and the kitchen and the bathroom fitments, don’t falter but don’t choose such that are unfit for purpose. Look to your needs and your pocket. If the costs are dangerously tight then the risk of a “Do’er Up’er” is such that you may loose money if you are able to sell at all. And, if you can’t sell what then? “Let It!”, the Estate Agent shouts but this brings it’s own risks and rewards.
It’s planning for the need. We’ve just sold a property in Cannon Close to the South of the City and the wonderful property needed work. The vendor and myself knew that the volume of work would not enable a “Do’er Up’er” purchase despite a tremendous volume of such buyers looking and offering. If the property is for you and your family then it’s about your own needs and the long term. So throw caution to the wind and have the two Ensuite bathrooms, under floor kitchen flooring and granite work surfaces. It’s yours to live in and enjoy and if you do it properly it will last and the eventual sale, so distant as to not warrant contemplation, will not disappoint. By Mark Walmsley
