When buying a house (www.nearlyperfecthouses.com.au) I make it a rule to always and I mean always get a builders report and a pest inspection done on the property, this is not only  if you are planning to improve the property but EVERY time.
So you reach the point:
* that you have inspected the house maybe a number of times,
* you have checked with the bank to see if they will loan you the money.
*You have worked out the improvements that you want to make and the cost. 

Your next step is to tell the agent or the owner that you will buy the property with the clause: subject to a builders and pest inspection.  These inspections will be at your cost. The agent will then put in a date that this has to be completed by.

When you receive the reports back – you decide if you want to proceed with the purchase.

I was looking at purchasing a house which could be subdivided. 

There are quite a lot of houses that fit this category in Seymour Victoria.  After looking at a number of houses and vacant land – I found this one in High Street.  It is a 100 year old house and has quite a chequered history.  It is situated on a corner and has a land size of 1200 square meters.  Quite enough to subdivide.  Across the road is a similar block and the owner told me that he was going to build 2 x two bedroom units.  This convinced me that I would be able to subdivide.

Having never done this before I contacted a surveyor who told me that it would cost about $1000 to get the beginning of the permit which would be given by the Council, the Council staff told me it would take approximately 3 – 4 months.  The surveyor told me to expect about six months. I am planning about 12 months before I would be in a position to commence the construction of my units.

 Once permission was granted I would need to contact all of the services such as electricity, gas and sewerage – meet their criteria which would have costs associated with it depending on what needed to be done.  My plan is to live in the house until the land was subdivided and 2 units had been built.  From there I would bull doze the house and construct more units.

More about nearly perfect houses.

I came up with the idea for this web site by searching endlessly on traditional web sites to look for houses that could be improved. I had to look at every photo to determine if it could be improved. Now my plan was to buy a house and then improve it in some way – a bathroom or a kitchen make over, a paint job throughout or maybe just remove rubbish and put in a garden.

My plan has always been to buy a house, improve it in the shortest time possible and then either put in a tenant or if it has improved the value of the house significantly then re sell it.

Well if you have tried to find a house this way you will know how time consuming it is?  I thought if there was a web site just listing houses that needed some work people like me would love it.

So here it is – if you are trying to sell a house that could do with some improvement – list it here.  Likewise if you are looking for that little treasure that you can do some work on – have a look here.

I hope that you enjoy my stories and that you learn how to and in some case how not to improve a house.  Let me know what you think, tell me your stories. Hopefully people will pick up hints from hearing about the good, the bad and the downright sad.

Hi there and welcome to my website and blog.  I am Australian and live in central Victoria  and have been improving houses all of my life.  Mostly they have been my home but occasionally they have been investment properties. I love change and have a tremendous urge to make things beautiful.

Now I have to be very honest and tell you that I am hopeless with tools, mechanical equipment and really anything that is useful.  However being a woman of the 21st century I know how the find the number to ring the person to fix it – whether it is one of my children, a fabulous friend or a professional.

I know men find this quite ridiculous and I am often smirked at when I call myself a renovator – but I think if there were not people like me with the vision then none of these professionals would have a job.

So keep all of this in mind when you read of my adventures of house improvement.  The other thing I need to tell you if that I am not very patient – so if I have an idea – things start to move – by things I mean furniture, pictures (although I have been known to start knocking out the wall before the furniture was moved)or plants. You will need to read my blogs to hear about this one.