When they bought a dated 1980s brick veneer home on the Gold Coast, Bec and Jared Wiseman had hoped to do a knockdown-rebuild.

In doing so, they calculated they’d make enough money to halve the mortgage on their family home, where they live with their three children. But their dream turned into a nightmare when the builder they had hired for the job pulled the pin, Bec lost her job and interest rates started to rise, so they could no longer borrow the amount of money they needed for the project. When they tried to sell, things went from bad to worse.

They’d bought the property for $1.55 million, but the offers that were coming in were around the $1 million to $1.2 mark. If they’d sold as it was, they would have been looking at a $400,000 to $500,000 loss — doubling the mortgage instead.

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Selling Houses Australia’s Wendy Moore to the rescue.

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In pure desperation, the couple turned to Selling Houses Australia for help.

Host and real estate expert Andrew Winter said the couple’s predicament was an issue of timing. “It was a hell of a lot of bad luck,” he said.

“Markets go in cycles all the time but there’s not necessarily a big crash or boom, it’s just changing a little bit. The trouble is these days when we’re talking about house prices with so many zeros a little blip in the market can be $100,000 and that can really ruin things. That’s exactly what happened here. They thought they could do a duplex development, but the site was a little bit too small.”

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Winter also said when you factor in agent fees and stamp duty, even if your property goes up by $50,000 to $80,000, it’s not enough to cover your disposal costs.

“You have to be aware of the risk and I think people think it’s not going to happen to them, but the reality is it does,” he said.

The Selling Houses Australia team (L-R) Dennis Scott, Andrew Winter & Wendy Moore. Picture: Nick Wilson

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“My recommendation to people on buying properties is to ensure they always have that plan B so that if something goes wrong they’re in a position to be able to do something about it or weather the storm.”

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Real estate agent Emma Gregory from Amir Prestige Group said Mermaid Waters was a great area for families, close to beaches but without the beaches price tag. But she said the home’s layout was a major problem. The only way to reach the backyard, which boasted a large pool, was through one of the four bedrooms, which were all at the back of the house. The laundry was also bigger than the kitchen, which was a size that was more suited to a two-bedroom unit.

According to PropTrack the median house price in Mermaid Waters is $1,737,500. That’s up 5.3 per cent over the past 12 months.

While Jared said he didn’t want to throw good money after bad, he knew they needed to renovate to appeal to modern buyers, so they called in some favours and came up with an $80,000 budget to revamp the property.

‘I love it when a plan comes together.’

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With families today wanting indoor-outdoor living, interior designer Wendy Moore said flipping the floor plan was a must. Together with her team, she moved two bedrooms to the front of house and knocked down walls to create a new living area with plenty of natural light at the rear, with French doors leading out to a resort-style outdoor entertaining area.

The old rotting timber deck was replaced with timber stone pavers and an automatic folding awning was installed over the barbecue area. They also knocked down the laundry wall to make way for a larger kitchen with a breakfast bar, and replaced the kitchen window with a larger one so you could see the pool.

So, do the couple manage to recoup the money on their investment? Tune in to find out.

Watch Selling Houses Australia on Foxtel and stream on LifeStyle available on Hubbl.

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