Darren Palmer's tips on where to spend your money to get the best return

Personal circumstances are bound to be different from household to household as are the structural and maintenance requirements from home to home. That said, there are a few areas to focus on to get the best return for your money in terms of adding amenity and/or value to your home.

Pools

A pool might seem like a luxury but sometimes a well-considered and delivered addition to the entertainment amenity that a pool can provide can add substantial value to the property.

Take for example the home sold on The Block Allstars in 2013 for $1.4 million by Mark and Duncan, the best buying on the day giving the contestants $25,000 profit. In three years, the property was relatively unchanged except for the addition of a modestly sized backyard pool and was sold for more than $2.5 million in 2016.

Obviously, market growth and an amazing purchase price had a great deal to do with the 86 per cent growth the property achieved but in prestige areas with homes of a high quality, a pool can be the perfect luxury value add to a home.

Architectural interest

There are many homes on the market designed or renovated in the ’70s, ’80s and ’90s that were mass produced with a relatively low-fuss approach to repeated floor plans and low levels of detail and internal finish.

Often all it takes to breathe life and value into these homes is a perception of a little more attention to the build in the form of enhanced architectural detail. In some instances, it might be replacing cornicing, others may call for a staircase revamp; another great architectural point of interest could be a fireplace.

Whatever the requirement, by looking at a bland or featureless interior and thinking about what is missing in its structure you can turn a sow’s ear into a silk purse.

Floor plan

There are opportunities to be had in increasing amenity in a home by altering the internal layout. Connecting living spaces to the outer boundaries of the property where possible is a safe bet. That can mean repurposing bedrooms as living spaces or shuffling the functions and locations of rooms throughout the floor plan to connect living spaces to outlooks and natural light while sheltering sleeping spaces from noise and light.

By simply taking a macro view of your home’s floor plan and thinking about how it could be improved you may unearth hidden space in ill-considered floor plans.

Images and extract from HomeSpace by Darren Palmer (Murdoch Books, RRP $39.99). Photography by Felix Forest.