When the 'renovator's delight' is the only house you can afford, here's what to look for
Georgia Frances King and Mete Erdogan found a gem of a property to renovate as first home buyers with little experience — here's how you can too. (ABC/Eureka Productions: Dean Bradley)
First home buyers Georgia Frances King and Mete Erdogan looked at more than 100 properties before finding their dream, ready-to-renovate property in late 2023.
For five months, the couple's weekends and lunch breaks had been consumed by real estate searches and inspections — until they took a chance on a heritage relic in the inner-north Melbourne suburb of Coburg "for a laugh".
"We'd seen photos and thought it was bonkers. It was all 70s nonna interiors, doilies and ceramic fishermen, and there were rooms that were dressed with a single chair in the corner," Mete remembers.
But they were blown away on their first inspection of the 1970 brick doer-upper — since dubbed Shag Manor — which boasted a melange of interior decoration styles from the 50s through to the 80s.
As op shoppers, marketplace hunters and fans of all things kitsch and vintage, the couple had been hoping to find a home with personality.
But they say the character-filled homes they inspected before Shag Manor were too run-down to invest in.
At $1.23 million, not only was this house within their budget — it was structurally sound. And no-one wanted it but them.
"Everyone else, I think, looked at this and thought: 'Why would I want to buy a house that looks like my Nonna still lives in it?'" Georgia says.
The extent of Georgia and Mete's DIY experience was assembling IKEA furniture and helping paint a friend's place.
But since starting the revamp of Shag Manor in January 2024, they've done everything from stripping wallpaper and carpet, to building a kitchen island bench and giving both of their bathrooms a sympathetic renovation.
The latter project was depicted on the latest season of Grand Designs Transformations (GDT).
But Georgia and Mete aren't just first-home buyers who took on a renovation with little DIY experience and allowed a film crew into their house to document it.
Georgia works in property as an editor, and alongside art director Mete, the pair have built a loyal following on social media as renovations and interiors influencers.
With the nation's ongoing housing affordability crisis leaving fewer turn-key options for entry-level buyers, we asked the pair — and professor of architecture and GDT host Anthony Burke — to share their tips for everyday Australians looking for ready-to-renovate properties.
1. Have a brief and stick to it
Burke's first piece of advice is to make sure you're "really clear when you walk through the door about what your goals are, with a clear idea of your limits".
This could include the amount of work you feel comfortable taking on, what your budget is, and what you absolutely won't do.
Are you OK with living in a flood or bushfire zone, or with a property with a heritage or cultural overlay?
"Go in with those eyes open rather than walking in and going: 'It could be this, it could be that, it could be a million things!'" he adds.
This is also when Burke says lifestyle preferences should come into play.
Georgia and Mete, for example, wanted a home with a good light aspect and an open-plan kitchen/dining area to serve as the heart of the house at the back, and Shag Manor had all of that to start with.
"What we weren't looking for, but also got, was five different types of terrazzo, an orange bar that was so big it was on the floor plans, and carpet that was best described as brown fireworks," Georgia jokes.
2. There's no such thing as too many viewings
Just ask Georgia and Mete, who say they attended up to 12 open homes every Saturday for months.
"And on lunch breaks Georgia would pick me up from work, I'd wolf [my food] down in the car, and we'd go see two or three houses," Mete says.
While the couple say it's common for properties to look better online than they do in person — the opposite is also true.
Loading..."You're probably going to waste a lot of time seeing houses that aren't quite right," Georgia admits.
"But we made assumptions about what this house would be like from online, based on other houses that looked [similar] online and were in terrible condition, and that wasn't the case."
3. On a budget? Structural soundness is everything
When Burke is asked about the worst-case scenario for a first home buyer with shallow pockets, he doesn't hesitate.
"You go into a place thinking 'New coat of paint and a new bathroom, that's all it's going to need', but then you rip up the carpet and realise you've got water damage under the floorboards … there's $25,000 gone straight away," he says.
"Don't [base any decisions] on what you're seeing with your eyes. What you need to understand is the bones of the place — the footings and foundations, the roof, potential water damage."
Burke says he "can't stress how important" it is to get a pre-purchase building inspection by a qualified professional.
"Your finishes and fixtures, they account for somewhere between 10 and 20 per cent of the overall budget of a typical project. That's not that much.
"The place where your money goes are places like the structural changes you'll make, [and] anything that goes into the foundations."
Any structural issues will also likely need rectifying before you get to the fun stuff.
Mete and Georgia invested between $2,000 and $3,000 on a slight levelling adjustment for Shag Manor before starting work on their bathrooms, for example.
"[Otherwise], the tiles would have moved," Mete explains.
Before: From an uninspired laundry/bathroom …. . After: To a spacious and vibrant retro-themed space.. .
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4. Choose a house you won't have to fight — and listen to it
Burke wishes more people would think of renovations as a form of conversation, as opposed to an argument.
"Don't fight the house," he says. "Always work with it."
This means looking for properties with a layout that's conducive to the way you want to live, and character that appeals to your sensibilities.
As fans of indoor-outdoor living and dining, Georgia and Mete were deliberate in choosing a house with a kitchen at the back of the building, and in planning their bathroom renovations around the plumbing that was already in place.
The couple have seen the financial implications of people trying to "fight" the houses they're renovating firsthand.
"We've watched friends with similar houses spend a lot more money renovating because they need to entirely move the internal floor plan and the plumbing of the house," Georgia says.
5. Consider what you might be able to DIY
Georgia says she and Mete didn't even think about the fact they had little renovation experience when they bought Shag Manor.
"We did realise what we didn't know, but we just figured we'd work it out," she says.
"Because we went to the upper end of our range, we knew we wouldn't have money for the first couple of years to hire in trades, so we just worked out how to do most of it ourselves."
A lot of their knowledge came from online videos, and they started with removing wallpaper.
"Everyone told us not to do it, but [the person] booked to do the job fell through, so we did it ourselves and it went fine," Mete says.
6. But be real about what you'll need to pay for help with
Trades, Burke points out, are real skills that take time to learn.
"[But] everyone who's watched a YouTube video on renovating a house thinks that suddenly they can take on a French chateau and get away with it," he says.
There are some things he'd never recommend people try and DIY, such as waterproofing.
"If you get that wrong, you'll pay for it forever in terms of money and your health."
He also recommends budgeting for an engineer for anything structural, and finding a good electrician and plumber.
The latter was the first expert Georgia and Mete hired for help with their house when starting work on their bathrooms.
They've since called in experts to build their deck, install insulation, ducted heating and cooling, used a landscape architect for the backyard, and a cabinet-maker to build their wardrobes.
Georgia says a big part of the reason they had the money to pay trades for these bigger and more complicated projects is because they "did so much of the work up to that point" by themselves.
Watch the new season of Grand Designs Transformations free on ABC TV and ABC iview.
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