Introduction g'day and welcome to another episode of perth property insider i'm your host jared mann and today i'm really excited to have the blocks ronnie and georgia along for a chat with me on how to renovate for profit now i'm a big fan of these guys really looking forward to taking you inside their experiences and everything that they've learned while being on the block as well as some of their key tips for renovating for profit it's going to be a really great episode we've got lots to cover let's go inside welcome to perth property insider where you will learn how to grow your wealth and improve your life using perth property our show is brought to you by investors edge real estate the highly rated and award-winning property management specialists servicing the whole of perth now here is your host jared mann g'day running in georgia thanks so much for being on the podcast it's really great to get the chance to chat with you today you say that now do you know what i mean yeah what you wish called jared but yes thank you very much and look forward to it well i wanted the real thing i want the unvarnished uh truth and you know you guys have so much experience i'm sure it's going to be great for our listeners regardless of where we go with this let's do it so i've got a bit of a confession to make before we jump in um i was shouting to my wife and she was telling me that she's never actually listened to a single one of my podcasts and when i told her that i was having you guys on i think i might have a chance of getting her first listen on this one so shout out to her have a subscriber congratulations yes new subscriber might even be able to twist her um for a review if she likes it i love that but um that's i guess a testament to how much of a favorite you are for a lot of us here in wa with um your various appearances on the block and and it was awesome to see you back in 2021 and didn't quite go according to plan it was such a awesome you had such an awesome journey along the way winning so many rooms didn't you and you know where did Ronnie and Georgia’s Back Story things end up were all of our listeners that were under a rock and didn't watch their things yeah well we we our journey was you know going back is i guess phase firstly there's an immense pressure on your shoulders to be really good right the expectation that you guys know what you're doing so um we definitely felt pressured to perform and i think having not only that experience of renovating which we've done in the real world but i think also having done the block before means that you're able to you understand how the process works a little bit more it's it's not your standard renovation so obviously you've got time restrictions you've got suppliers you have to work with you've got cameras in your face you're being recorded 24 7. so i think because we had that experience we sort of enjoyed ourselves a little bit more and then i think what that translated into is just an ease of the renovation for us you know we didn't have that pressure of worrying about the filming process we could actually just focus on building a beautiful home and so we did well we won quite a quite a lot of rooms we had a massive budget so obviously when you win rooms you win extra money that you can reject home so we had the highest spec home without a doubt on the block and then i mean look things were going our way we've done it we did everything possible to create a beautiful house and i think we did because i think in terms of like the product selections and the style of the home we wanted just to appeal to as many people as possible so we did a very neutral color palette we did a really functional floor plan um and then yeah you come to the auction and um and look and you know the block is a reality tv show and the auction you know it's not scripted um it's the only thing that the executive producer does not have control over and it's the only thing we don't have control over yes you know going ahead you know thinking before the auction i thought we had a really good chance of winning but you know well well the messaging we were getting from a lot of people was you know you guys you're in a really good position to win this you've created the best house you're um you've got the most interest from the tracking on the domain website yeah and i got eight registered buyers whereas everybody else only had one we had eight people to buy our house and that didn't include danny wallace so danny wallace is kind of like he's gonna be he doesn't have to register he can rock up he could buy five houses on the day he could buy one house on the day you just don't know and so when danny came into play and then started bidding on everybody else's houses that's where it just just was hands up yeah and also look we because we did have eight registered buyers you know we had to go first um i originally george and i wanted to go second but you know it wouldn't be fair to put up a house that only has one registered buyer and imagine if that got off to a bad start yeah that's the time for everybody else so that sets precedence and then we're all screwed because it's very rare that you have five houses on the same street go on the market on the same day yeah like never yeah lucky is you know the exception to the rules like the prices the block houses get in the air i mean we were in hampton yes but we were like not high end hampton we went by the beach like a little bit of a dodgy end hampton so the prices that we got for those houses was remarkable next level yeah and it did seem like they were pushing the reserves and everyone was very shocked that was i know no one ever likes their reserves on past seasons i can't recall anyone getting their reserve and thinking yeah this is uh well it's interesting you say that because we've obviously had that experience in 2017 when we saw our reserve by memory they were at 2.6 we had qualified buyers buying our house at 2.6 so that meant for us it's gonna sell but how much above that reserve are we gonna like what's our profit walking away with so we had a very sinking feeling in 2017 and then when the reserves were revealed to us back in 2021 that all the emotion came back and we were like wow it's happening again because our price guide was 2.6 or 2.8 traditionally reserves are at the higher end of that price guide yeah um those were like 600 000 higher than the high end of the price guard who like no one's making money no one's gonna sell yeah it was it was really hard to watch from home it was it was hard to deliver but you know what look we're winning at life mate you know this is money's come back we made cash we made three hundred thousand and do you know what that's the whole thing right we are so grateful to walk away with that sort of money tax free and that is really um you know a lot that makes a big difference in a lot of australians lives and as it does for us i think for us the ego is bruised right yeah if you get into comparisons you know we saw the cheating scandal and the others that didn't necessarily pull off the best rooms and i guess as a home viewer we just we wanted you to do better and get more because we felt you deserved it you know thank you and that was a you know that was a particularly hard pill to swallow when other teams on that series who hadn't hadn't done the right thing and hadn't played by the rules and hadn't really respected the process um and in our opinion didn't have better houses than ours um were you know beat us and that was like that was a really hollow wasn't it it was it was but you know what we uh we move on and ronnie's already moved on which is great we made some great contacts in regards to because we are undergoing a renovation in our house soon and uh so yeah look you know all is good but i could i could i can say honestly that the that chapter has closed uh that that journey has finished do you know what i love how you say this ronnie always trying to again but i guarantee if he got the phone call and they were like ron he'd be like yeah right i don't think i would don't maybe a little more time needs to pass until ron dog's reader you know get back to the block just all we need is time though all these times so give us some background on your other renovating experience because Ronnie & Georgia’s Property Renovation Experience i was surprised to find out just how much you guys have done and you know it's not just appearing on the show for you is it no absolutely not and the thing was is that um i'd always watch the block since it started and once meeting georgia all i remember because you weren't that invested in the block were you georgia would come in and say what are you watching and she'd start yelling at the tv because she's like what are these contestants doing because at that time we were actually doing our own renovations you should just irritate me i was like i could do that better that's a really bad choice and then i kind of like but deep down i feel like why are we not doing this we're not giving this a crack yeah but in terms of our renovation experience i guess ronnie's grown up his dad was a plasterer and he's and and you grew up renovating houses with your family and you moved every other year and yeah i think uh you know watching my dad and i think we've moved to about five different houses and you know my dad worked extremely hard as a plasterer but um i kind of liked the fact that we were moving around to different suburbs because that would mean new primary schools you know new high schools you liked that and a new set of friends absolutely oh man i love that part but i think what that kind of showed me is that it is renovating houses is a good way to get ahead um we've done about 14 15 houses including the two block houses um and one of the things that was uh in common with all the renovations is that they were all duplex blocks duplex or triplex blocks where you obviously retain the front house sell off the back block um and then renovate the front house and then move on um if but in hindsight how funny we had this discussion the other day we were like the penny drops for us i was like imagine if we just like kept some of those houses why did we have to sell every single one of them back in the day when you could be in wally and you could pick up a duplex block for what a hundred thousand hundred and seventy thousand dollars back in the day not when i was when i when i came on the scene well you came on to the thing it was three hundred thousand my first molly block was 180 000. um and that was a corner block and then i think we only had 300 square meters for that corner block and everyone thought i was crazy like what is this guy doing and we ended up selling and we just kept on moving on but we started off in those um like in bedford dinella bay's water and then we eventually moved up to mount lawley and uh and north perth but i think the ones that we made our most money on was those like um the bedfords the bay's waters where your expenditure is less you know you can because you're you're specking out a house for that sort of demographic for that market therefore you're okay to put it ikea kitchen in it you're okay to put low spec hardware and tap where because that's what the you're just meeting the market actually more room for profit when you look at others that are on market you know if yours is very well presented throughout and renovated to a nice even standard you know you're probably still standing out well you know yeah the competitions yeah exactly and i guess it just worked really well where georgia you know she could see it instantly what the house was going to look like and all i need to renovate his face is a photograph or an idea and we're very good at making stuff look expensive without spending a lot of money and you know much credit to georgia because i i can't do what she does um can i just interject yeah like if you had seen us we're having this massive argument about our renovation at our house here and like what you just said then can you just remind yourself that was an argument that that wasn't an argument that was more like foreplay today really [Laughter] well whatever gets us going ronnie yeah it's just that we're both very passionate people and very opinionated in what she wants and i'm very i'm looking at okay george that's a great idea but that's gonna like i'm looking i know how much that's going to cost and i'm just trying to come up with a cheaper solution you know i would love to spend a million dollars on this renovation in bedford but the reality is we're not going to be doing that because oh what's the point i can't even deal with you right now oh my gosh you're the one that i have to go honey we're not doing that ronnie we're not anyway we die massively i guess this crosses over into you know some of the realities of Renovating in Real Life VS Renovating on the Block renovating on the block and in the real world how how was how is renovating in real life being different to the emotional roller coaster we see on the block is it is it different or is it same same i prefer renovating on the block for a numeracy really okay you know you're going to finish your renovation in 12 weeks so it's done secondly you've got suppliers throwing at you left right and center and they move mountains for you to have what you need at the drop of a pin so that's good and then also it's like i guess it's going to reflect on them on national television correct they can't deliver on time or you know they've got that vested interest don't they yeah and also um you know path innovation like we were using some of the the newest products that hadn't even hit the market yet and from a design point of view that's really exciting um and also i think the budgets whilst they are tight they're also generous if that makes sense because if you can win rooms each week you can get a bigger budget so you can do some really exciting things so um and then obviously renovating in real life it's like well when you're renovating on the block all your seven days or six days a week uh for 24 hours you're just thinking on that room whereas real world you know you've got a school to worry about you've got doctors you've got mortgages like you've got all of that stuff on the like real life you've got real life forms a clock when you're in that little bubble all you're concentrating on is just that room every week um but also i guess renovating on the block you're doing room at a time which is a little bit counter-intuitive to how you would build a house but for me from a creative process it actually works well like i love just being in a room standing there with my builders going right this is what we're going to do and we're mapping it out and we're actually visualizing the space there and then um whereas i think with a normal build it's kind of a more holistic approach you have to sort of the whole space and how you're going to work it and in which process you're going to build and so yeah i mean i yeah i prefer the block yeah look it's very hard don't get me wrong um once you actually you lose about 10 kilos eight to 10 kilos in those three months but then you put them straight back on back into the real world because it's just not normal you're only sleeping four or five hours a night right you're doing all-nighters but you just get so caught up and in the rush in the it i mean we had a lot of fun second time around georgia touched on that and and that came down to the fact that it was our second time and we were comfortable we knew what um we were there to do and we just wanted to bring it home to wa you know but also i think you love the challenge like with this renovation we're about to attempt everyone keeps saying i reckon we should just like you know try and do it in like eight weeks i reckon we can do it in eight weeks and he's like trying to failure i'm like what just calm down well it's not anywhere i said six weeks i reckon we can do it um but uh but yeah look that's to wait and see what happens there watch this space yeah i guess it might be a bit different when you're living in the house that you're renovating to i've found that um you know it's harder to plan things you know there can be rooms it's just disruption to the family so yeah we have lived in a renovation before many renovations as we were doing it but it was just running myself and then giordano ronnie's done but you know we would um co-parents so we would have him every other week so it wasn't so hectic but now planning on living renovating with two two kids and we're probably going to start the renovation during winter um so it's going to be it's going to be awesome no it's going to be chaos it's going to be fun because um we weren't a camping family up until about three years ago and and now we've gone out and brought all the portable kitchens and all of that stuff so i'll just be setting up one of the rooms as like a makeshift kitchen uh we're gonna have a bathroom it's gonna be very comfortable darling i think i'll just be uber eats it's gonna be my friend yeah it's gone it's gonna be fun but you know you know what i can't actually you everything you're saying right now is giving me um like high anxiety so we might have to not be able to continue the interview like just don't think about it until you're in it so that's what i'm gonna do i'm not gonna think about it until we're in it but georgia did touch on it we did the first eight renovations that we did we we lived in it you know so um but me working i was a plasterer back in those days so i'd finish work at one o'clock and then come home and work all night um and we just got used to the rendered the process and we didn't have a lot of cash so um we didn't really have a choice so um yeah like georgia said hindsight's a beautiful thing if only you know rich dad poor dad was written all those years ago i probably would have picked it up and said let's start keeping it because uh i had no idea well yeah that's a good takeaway Impact on Renovating with the Block and what were some of your takeaways from your two seasons on the block do you have any major things that have impacted the rest of your renovating now i think i think my biggest takeaway from the block is um it's a great it's a great lesson um in illustrating that hard work pays off as in you know you build a house in 12 weeks thanks to just sheer determination and hard work and when you really put yourself in a position where you have to push yourself to the extreme it's amazing to see what you can actually achieve so that's a really people takeaway for us that we love we always talk about that and i think that's the biggest lesson we could have showed our kids um we have to be away from it once but twice and that was pretty insane and that definitely had impact on our family i think the byproduct of that is showing them what hard work looks like and so i'm really proud of that as well in terms of a transfer to a renovation i mean i think it's just you become more confident in your process because you're really experienced at it so um you know are you from a construction point of view you learned so many amazing things yeah back in the first time we did it in 2017 um i learned a lot of trades like you know working with my uh the builders that were chippies working with the uh the jip rockers the plasterers over there um and now those skills that i learned i actually do that in the real world so i'm very grateful for that because in what opportunity are you in in a scenario for three months where you're hanging around 24 7. 15 trades for the day and you're helping them and you know so now i do my own tiling i do my all my own woodwork um i do my jib rocking you know i was a solid war plasterer by trade but um never a you know every time i'd get caught up to do a ceiling i'll i'll say no but it's funny because in victoria is a jib rocker and a ceiling fixer the same thing no they that they call them plasterers over there um but over here we call them well ceiling fixers or solid wall plasters so no they're different things okay well it doesn't really matter does it no well yeah i mean it doesn't it's all right so actually i think it does matter the the point is that um you know for me i gained a lot and i'm still using them today and still learning every day and that's one thing i'm not afraid we've done the impossible i'm not afraid to build my concrete swimming pool at the back like that for me is going to be a heck of a challenge but i know it's doable um so if there's any uh concrete cool guys out there listening to this and find us on instagram and like reach out because i'm all for it don't maybe that's a whole episode of podcasts so i asked um you to put together some tips for a runner's listing on Tips on Renovating a Property Without Costing Too Much how to renovate while you know still adding a high perceived value without you know a huge cost attached to it so what are some of the tips you'd give people when they're doing their own renovations yeah i think you should definitely um from the get-go plan and then just plan again you can never be over prepared and in that it includes doing your due diligence and just really understanding what your project's going to look like so you can go into it with a real clear mindset so how much of that do you guys do before you purchase and how much do you do after because that's probably a good but us personally you know when we were buying and flipping properties we were always looking at properties that were sub-dividable um and so we would obviously reach out to councils um inquire about the zoning and then also only really buy and sell properties in areas that we're very familiar with it's all part of the process really understanding what you what you're taking on um and then on that note as well is also those real estate agents yes they might be pesky but they are your best friends and if you wanted for a career you do have to take them out for lunches and coffees and really pick their brains because you know these are the guys um you know getting these listings and if you take a couple of agents out to lunch and you know befriend them play golf with them you know they might they might pick up the phone and actually call you up first for a house that they've just won a listing on so you know because back in the day when we were renovating houses every man and his dog was doing it so if you have those relationships uh with real estate agents in the areas that you're familiar with and that's something that you know you had to know straight away when you're on realestate.com if a new property came on you've only got literally minutes to win it because and actually even it's not even that it's actually getting the listings before they hit the market yeah um so if you can get the intel so you know that we've bought many properties before it actually even hit the market just because we had those pre-established relationships um we had a lot of agents who understood what we did and you know we put the fillers out saying hey we're looking for our next development and then they'll just come to us so it is about establishing really good relationships with people in the know yeah i mean that's transferable to anybody we'd always do the right thing you say it's obvious but you know most people um try to do everything themselves and don't leverage that knowledge that they can find out from the agent you know if you're planning your rental it's good to find out what they think it might sell for if you did these things and work backwards you know so that you're not spending too much and is that market if you're if you're innovating to sell what is that market looking for yeah exactly what's important i twos or do they value a swimming pool or is it more about the grass or is it you know it's there's all those sort of things that you really really absolutely should pick the brain of your real estate agents because they they're the ones in the know i think secondary was um understand your budget when it comes to a renovation and really stick to it like you've got to be on top of that stuff because if you set let's say 200k for a renovation and it blows out to 300k well that's just cutting into your profits so it's really being um efficient with budget management and um and like affluent of that is when you when you're working you need to get multiple quotes because you don't want to always accept the first quote you got to get you know we would generally not now because we've got our set trades but in the beginnings we would always be getting two or three quotes and you would be so surprised how much they are yeah especially in this market it's like the moment someone gets busy they'll just double their price and see how many of those they can pick pick up and yeah you get a couple of quotes and they can be like that some can be double what others are and do that a few times across your whole rental when all of a sudden you've saved 20 or 30 grand so you don't always want to accept the cheapest quote because sometimes that's a work so you do pay for what you get so you just have to be a bit smart and a bit you know do your research when it comes to your trades as well so give me some of the addresses of other works you you know other projects you've worked on and do drive-bys and check it out so yeah and then i i guess for me what i used to do back in the day if i didn't know the trades if i actually was driving my car and i actually saw a trading uh doing something it's doing some decking um at the front of someone's house i'd stop and talk to him look at their work um because that was also good yeah that's a great way of actually seeing their work and talking to them um and then you know say look i'll give you call in a couple of weeks that would always work um and then also like when you're renovating for profit don't be afraid to do the work yourself like what's the worst thing that could happen like yes you might screw up but these days with youtube pinterest uh instagram there's so many how-to's out there um i think within reason right so obviously you wouldn't do plumbing and you wouldn't do sparky work of course you could definitely give painting and tiling a bit of demo or crack for sure and you certainly don't want to do anything that's going to cheapen your end value because you know not everyone's a great painter like you ronnie um i i see people say oh i'm going to paint the house myself i come and it's just slopped everywhere and i'm like oh man you shouldn't have but you can save a lot if you are prepared to put in the sweat equity i guess absolutely for sure and when you're thinking about how to distribute your budget you invest in rooms that you're going to get a return on so that's always your kitchens and your bathrooms right so don't be afraid to spend the money on your kitchens don't be afraid to spend your money on the bathrooms and then you know living area a floor plan or so you've got to get the flow of a house right and if you've never renovated in that suburb before you know make a habit of going to home opens on a saturday in that price point if you think your house is going to be worth 800 000 by the time you finish go and have a look at 800 000 houses and see what your competition is but we would always do the right thing with the real estate agents if an agent had actually called me up and said ron we've got this we've just got this new listing come and check it out um the deal i would make with the agents is that they would always sell the back block so you know they would sell the house very quickly and then they know in a couple of months that that block was going on so they would get the listing so it almost becomes like a double commission for those so yes agents can be annoying but they can also be your friend that can actually make you a lot of money yeah i've definitely in my recent searches for property found that befriending the agents is the only way that you're going to find something in this market and then get enough information from them so that you know where to come in at because it's just so hard when people just have offers on the price point you know where do you go with that so yeah and look i can speak like that about agents because i used to be a real estate agent out lawley for four one of us yeah and i loved it i learned so much and it was interesting because we were renovating houses in mount lawley and uh i'd never forget stuart irving from irving and kanan uh he approached me because he was selling our real block and he was like ronnie have you ever thought about becoming a real estate agent i was like oh man look stuart i can't i don't own a suit i can't use a computer but i'll see you on monday you know for me it was like a a no-brainer i got to see how um how the other end of flipping houses is and i really really loved it but for me using my hands that's where i get my most pleasure and enjoyment out of sounds so dodgy maybe when my body gives up i could always go back to real estate when i'm older because i actually i made great friends and learnt a lot but you know we also use that to our advantage now so was there any other tips we haven't covered in the six i can't remember where we got up to oh another you know another really quick and easy one to do is just you know a fresh coat of paint don't underestimate the value of a fresh coat of paint um and it's actually you know it's to paint a house you are you know if you think you're up for the challenge you can do it yourself and it's really just materials and a bit of elbow grease um so it's quite a cost-effective way to completely transform it honestly if you're renovating to sell select lovely bright neutral colors as in just whites so it keeps it fresh makes the space seem bigger you never want to go polarizing colors like feature walls and stuff because you know you just want to when you're selling a house you want to get 10 people walk through the house and you want 10 people to want to buy it so yeah i think that's i think we almost Final Thoughts covered all of them well i know we could talk for days we've got to cap it somewhere so that it's the you know nice nice time just for someone to get to work or go on their uh go to their gym yeah so before we go um what have you both been up to since the show aired in september what's uh life been been really nice to just be well we got stuck in sydney because of covers and ron was filming celebrity apprentice over there so which sets to air in i think maybe may or june in may in may um so luckily georgia and the kids joined me in sydney which was fantastic but we got out of there just in the nick of time quarantined for two weeks um at home and and now i'm back in the real world um you know looking after my renovation hq which is my business and george has been incredibly busy with um you know doing a ton of collaborations yeah it's funny how you sort of you fall into obviously a byproduct of being on a tv show is your social media following which is amazing and so then yeah we've just been doing collaborating with some amazing brands and creating you know i guess organic content which is you know it's quite challenging because from an influencing point of view you have to come up with you know creative ideas and you have to shoot it and you have to edit it you have to report on you know traction and like it's it's a whole it's not just like stand there and take a photo buy a process and um yeah so we've been just incredibly busy with all that stuff but also really just working on our house which is our next biggest project we'll be filming that and creating a series and it's just getting a whole bunch of sponsors on board and um yeah yeah we're very very excited with what this year we're also off to shoot another tv show for channel nine on the east coast which now we can finally travel because the restrictions that'll be much easier then yeah yeah so yeah it's going to be an insanely busy year but we're ready for it yeah we are ready for it and uh it's interesting and i have been working for the last four weeks but in the last probably three weeks i've actually been listening a lot of your uh listening to your podcast sharon unlike your wife so there you go i've got to admit that you know i wasn't much i never listened to a podcast before but uh i was like you know what uh because you touched base in november you called me up yeah originally it's fake then didn't we yeah and i was like you know what just you know send us a text message with one of your links and i started listening i was like wow man this guy really knows what he's talking about so uh congratulations mate um put on a lot of friends to to your podcast so um well done mate and uh i i really applaud that so other than doing um some work at my place which i really really appreciate um kareena's gonna be very excited to have use of their laundry again now that's good what's some of the ways that you can help listeners with their renovation projects what are some of the things you get in involved with well yeah i mean ron's really a jack of all trades aren't you my dog yeah i am um and depending on like what's going on in our lives because we've got this your project coming up i can't take on anything too big but i'm quite happy to do small jobs you know i advertise just like all tradies out there on high pages but uh we'll put a link to that in the show notes so people can reach out if they've got you know something to do through you know social media instagram i i'm taking a few interior design clients on but i'm quite time poor so i'm sort of limiting again that's not something that i advertise but it just sort of comes to me and falls in my lap a little bit so i like to be the jobs that i take on but um yeah i enjoy yeah i enjoy working with people and more importantly you enjoy working with me because sometimes it's like uh they want us to go out to the double annie they want their dad and they're like oh my god this is crazy what have you done and they're like well they wanted an authentic block experience don't they so you know well they get it because that's look that's that's who we are like one tip if anyone ever wants to go on a reality tv show just please be yourself because otherwise it's going to become very messy you're going to get unstuck um and unfortunately that's just who we are you know i mean look that's not unfortunately that was the wrong word but that's who we are if uh yeah we're just both very opinionated very passionate people i guess okay i like it never gonna get by you right i'm definitely gonna have to try and have you back again in the future maybe we can touch a bit deeper on some of your maybe your most recent runner we can go further into and by then uh i'm sure we'll have all seen uh celebrity apprentice so we can probably have a few more things to talk about there ron dog hopefully uh fingers crossed you do well do we need to pre-warn people about this about what like what could possibly go wrong with you don't understand like i was the leaf that just rained ronnie in on the block like there was like constant this could be trouble then yeah i wasn't there so who knows guys no it's fine uh yeah but it's gonna be good viewers that's all i can say well thank you so much for your time today and uh catch you again soon Outro absolute pleasure jared thanks bye [Music] [Music] you