Build for the Unimpressed

The person who decides what a renovation was worth will probably never meet the owner. It will be a bank's valuer, sent out when a future buyer applies for a bond, who walks through with a clipboard, measures, takes photos, and then sits down with recent sales on the surrounding streets.

That valuer is unimpressed by stories. The imported tiles chosen after weeks of shopping and the custom kitchen built by a cousin get measured against one cold question: what are houses like this selling for around here? If the best houses in the suburb sell at a certain level, a renovation that pushes a house far above it mostly stays with the owner. The valuation will not follow, and the buyer's bond will not stretch to cover it.

Owners who build for that stranger make different choices. They fix what every buyer notices, a sound roof and good wiring with its compliance certificate, and they spend on finishes in proportion to the street rather than to their dreams.

There is nothing wrong with building for pleasure, as long as it is understood as pleasure. The trouble comes when an owner prices the house at what it cost, and the stranger with the clipboard prices it at what it is.