Should I Refurbish or Renovate My Property?

Whether you are trying to bring out a spark in your home or you are trying to improve a property to be as appealing as possible to a potential buyer it is important to determine whether or not refurbishment or renovation is what is required. 

Quite often the terms refurbishment and renovation are used as equivalents but there are some nuanced factors to each that makes them different, knowing the difference can sometimes be useful.

Refurbishment usually means that a property undergoes an attempted improvement to what already exists; cleaning, decorating, re-equipping. It usually also involves some retro-fitting. This is when appliances or equipment that was in the house is replaced to be more modern. The aim of a refurb is to bring the property back to the quality of when it was new. 

Renovation usually means that the property goes through a much more substantial change. Such as conversions, construction, taking out walls or changing the structure of the building itself. The aim of the renovation is to turn it from something that it was into something completely new and fresh.

There are many factors that should come into consideration when you are making the decision of whether you will be renovating or refurbishing.

First, you will need to determine what you would like the finished property to ultimately look like; as this will indicate what work will need to be done to achieve that goal.  

You will also need to determine what your budget for the project is; this will also determine what work you will be able to do that also fits within the scope of the project. 

You will also need to understand what your limitations with the property are; this just means, will you be able to get planning permission for any big changes? Is what you have in mind for the property feasible? 

Sometimes it's also important to take what you intend to do with the property after the work is complete into consideration as well. You won’t always need to do this, unlike the previous points. 

It can be useful to ask yourself the question: is the work I am doing for my family and me to live in? Or is this for others to live in? 

This can be important because if you are making changes to a property for you to live in, you can really do whatever you want so that it fits your vision and what styles you like. If you are making changes to the property to then try and sell it, you probably should be considering what the current trends and styles are, so that the property can be as universally appealing to the current property buyers as possible, hopefully helping it sell better. 

The factors mentioned above when taken into consideration should help you in determining what the exact nature of the work you are going to be doing will be. The minor difference between renovation and refurbishment might not be useful to most people, but to any prospective property developer understanding the differences might be incredibly useful for your journey.  

The most important thing to understand though is that whatever projects you end up taking on, hard work will always be useful and required; making the property the best it can be is no easy feat, at the end though that hard work will be incredibly satisfying and worth it.