A renovate now, pay later home preparation company is helping real estate agents and their vendors achieve hundreds of thousands of dollars above their initial appraisal price.
Renosell started operating in the Sydney market in 2021 after directors Josh Mansour, Hassan Najjarine, Luke Karam and Nathan Karam identified a major gap in the renovate now, pay later market.
All having worked in the real estate, project management and construction space, the business partners knew it was important to prepare a home for sale and present it in its best light to achieve the maximum sale price.
But Mr Najjarine said vendors often baulked at the idea of renovations.
“I’d always get the feedback, ‘I don’t have the time’ or ‘I don’t have the money’, and then there was always the issue of managing the trades,” he said.
So Renosell was born.
Mr Najjarine said when their real estate agent referral partners, such as McGrath, Ray White and LJ Hooker agents, are met with vendor objections to renovating due to cost and time, they recommend they contact Renosell to do it all for them.
A Renosell consultant visits the property to ascertain and make a recommendation on what work needs to be done and provides an investment appraisal.
If accepted, a project manager is appointed and Renosell organises and carries out all of the work.
“We can turn around a job in about three weeks,” Mr Najjarine said.
“We hand it back to the client, or the agent, ready to take photos the next day, and the best thing of all is the client doesn’t pay a cent until they settle.”
Mr Najjarine said Renosell only worked on homes in the pre-sale phase of their campaign and only once an agency agreement had been signed.
He said this provided the added benefit to real estate agents of speeding up the agreement signing.
“We won’t start work until an agency agreement is signed and that means the agent usually gets it quite quickly,” Mr Najjarine said.
It also means agents are free to manage the sale and find buyers, and not lose time managing the renovations, as well as the improved commission a boosted sale price would bring.
He said the most common improvements Renosell did were painting, landscaping, electrical work, property styling and cleaning.
The average spend on a pre-sale renovation is about $40,000 but if a vendor wants to spend less, Renosell helps prioritise improvements to make based on which will help achieve the best sale price.
Mr Najjarine said a recent project in Sydney saw a vendor spend $80,000 to substantially renovate her investment property, which tenants had damaged.
There were holes in doors, mould on the ceilings and walls, peeling paint, damaged floors, broken ceiling fans, graffiti on external walls and an unkempt garden.
“It was completely trashed,” Mr Najjarine explained.
“We did a complete renovation that was $80,000.
“Pre-sale, the agent said $380,000 was roughly what it was worth… it sold after the first open house for $595,000.”
Another example, this time in Little Bay, saw a property, which was appraised at $3.5 million pre-renovation, sell for $4.4 million after the vendor had Renosell do $125,000 worth of improvements.
“So that’s roughly a 600 per cent return,” Mr Najjarine said.
Mr Najjarine said Renosell was a licensed building company in NSW as well as a licensed real estate corporation.
Looking to the future, he said Renosell was looking to consolidate and build its growth in Sydney before looking to expand.
“Our mission hasn’t changed from day one, which is to help property owners maximise their sale price without paying for it upfront,” he said.
