What the property looked like before we started.

The seller had owned the property for years. It was well-built and well-located. But it had not been updated since the original fit-out. The kitchen felt dated. The paint was tired. The garden had grown in all the wrong directions. The kind of property that buyers walk through and immediately start calculating preparation costs in their heads.

That mental calculation is the problem. The moment a buyer starts pricing their own renovation, they subtract it from their offer. They do not add your sentimental value. They add their risk, their effort, their time and a healthy contingency buffer. The gap between what you think the property is worth and what they are willing to pay for it in that condition is almost always larger than the cost of doing the preparation yourself first.

Roxanne assessed the property, identified exactly which works would move the needle in the current market, and gave the seller a predicted post-renovation value before a single dollar was spent. The numbers made sense. They proceeded.