Latest / Renovate & Real Estate / From Wagga to the world: Tracey's Greek renovation adventure – More Than Renovating

Transcript

From Wagga to the world: Tracey's Greek renovation adventure – More Than Renovating · Renovate & Real Estate

• 0:00
  Welcome to More Than Renovating, a Renovate and Real Estate podcast.
• 0:04
  Our founder, Belinda Smith, talks to industry experts to provide you
• 0:08
  with the knowledge and information you need to make renovating for
• 0:11
  love and profit your reality.
• 0:14
  Belinda will also chat to some of her Renovation Mastery members who are just
• 0:18
  everyday people doing extraordinary things following their passions in
• 0:22
  the renovation and property space.
• 0:24
  So let's jump straight into the episode.
• 0:27
  Enjoy.
• 0:29
  Hi, I'm Belinda Smith from Renovate and Real Estate.
• 0:32
  On today's podcast recording, with me is Tracey Ellis.
• 0:37
  Tracey Ellis is from Old 2 New House Transformations.
• 0:42
  Tracey and I have worked pretty closely together.
• 0:45
  Tracey is one of my VIP students and a really lovely lady, and you are
• 0:50
  listening to the More Than Renovating podcast because you know it's all
• 0:54
  about the human story as much as it is about the house transformations.
• 0:58
  Welcome, Tracey.
• 1:00
  Hello.
• 1:01
  Thanks for having me.
• 1:02
  You are welcome.
• 1:03
  So the reason this came about is that Tracey was at my house.
• 1:07
  We had an a Renovation Consultancy Mastery retreat at my house two weekends ago,
• 1:14
  and we were having a bit of a giggle and Tracey shared with me something that I
• 1:19
  hadn't heard her talk about before, and that's a renovation that she did overseas
• 1:24
  and it was such an interesting story.
• 1:26
  I thought that she should share it with all of you guys.
• 1:30
  And why I find it interesting is Tracey did a renovation overseas.
• 1:34
  I don't know about you guys, but I'm forever reading all of those ads
• 1:38
  from Italy and France and they say, come and buy one of our properties
• 1:43
  for a dollar and renovate and live in the beautiful mountain side or
• 1:47
  all the places they talk about.
• 1:49
  Come and buy a house for a dollar and come and renovate that house.
• 1:53
  And there are certain parameters around those renovations.
• 1:55
  And I've since read articles where the actual cost to purchase one of
• 1:59
  those houses is closer to $25,000, but it's certainly not what we pay here.
• 2:04
  And I know people love the romance of renovating overseas.
• 2:08
  So Tracey, tell us, first of all, whereabouts did you renovate?
• 2:13
  What country?
• 2:15
  In Greece, in Athens.
• 2:17
  I dunno why I still find that really funny, especially when you start
• 2:22
  to talk about how it came about.
• 2:24
  So let's go.
• 2:25
  How did it come about, Tracey, that you decided to renovate a house in Greece?
• 2:30
  Oh, well, yeah, it just, just basically happened.
• 2:33
  I was having a late to life gap year.
• 2:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 2:39
  So
• 2:39
  What is that, Eat, Pray, Love?
• 2:42
  Or one of those years?
• 2:42
  What is it?
• 2:43
  One of those ones?
• 2:44
  Yeah.
• 2:45
  Yes.
• 2:45
  So that was 10 years ago.
• 2:47
  Went to Athens and loved it.
• 2:50
  Loved the lifestyle, the sit in the cafes and watch the world go by.
• 2:56
  And I've always, everybody, most people want to do the overseas renovation thing.
• 3:04
  Yeah.
• 3:04
  Very romantic, have a romantic flare about it.
• 3:08
  Under the Tuscan sun.
• 3:10
  Mine, I suppose.
• 3:12
  Yeah.
• 3:12
  Was a pretty selfish reason.
• 3:16
  I just wanted to be over there.
• 3:18
  Yeah.
• 3:18
  If I thought if I had an apartment over there, I could go over more often.
• 3:22
  Yeah.
• 3:23
  Which, yeah, I loved doing.
• 3:24
  I loved, I loved travelling.
• 3:26
  Full stop.
• 3:27
  Yeah.
• 3:27
  But now I've got to know a lot of people over there and love, love
• 3:32
  going to, going back to visit, and so the biggest thing was the prices.
• 3:39
  It was very cheap to buy an apartment in Athens at that time.
• 3:44
  So,
• 3:45
  So an apartment in Athens, it cost you a roundabout.
• 3:48
  How much money did it cost you?
• 3:50
  I bought it for 35,000 Euro.
• 3:53
  Right, which is what in Australia back then?
• 3:56
  What do you reckon that translated to?
• 3:58
  I think it's double.
• 4:01
  Approximately, I think we're, we're 70,000.
• 4:04
  Roundabout.
• 4:05
  Yeah, I think, yeah.
• 4:06
  Yeah.
• 4:07
  And then by the time I renovated and furnished it, it was about 50,000 Euro.
• 4:14
  Fantastic.
• 4:15
  Okay.
• 4:15
  Do you have a valuation on it?
• 4:18
  Now, I did, I got it valued few years, oh, before COVID?
• 4:24
  Yeah.
• 4:24
  And they said I'd probably get about three times what I originally bought it for.
• 4:30
  But like I was, do I want to keep it?
• 4:36
  Sell it?
• 4:36
  What do I want to do?
• 4:37
  So I kept it, but then we had COVID.
• 4:40
  Yeah.
• 4:40
  So it was an Airbnb, after I did it up and then COVID happened and no tourists.
• 4:49
  So just let let it rented it to just locals.
• 4:54
  Yeah.
• 4:55
  And yeah, so it's still doing that now.
• 4:59
  So it wasn't so I've just sold it.
• 5:02
  Yeah.
• 5:02
  Yeah.
• 5:03
  So I, I did, I sold it to my manager, so I didn't get the highest price.
• 5:08
  'cause it was just easy to do.
• 5:10
  Just to sell it to manager.
• 5:11
  Yeah.
• 5:11
  Just sell it manager straight to them.
• 5:12
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 5:13
  But like, when I'm looking for properties now, they're
• 5:16
  probably, they're probably double.
• 5:18
  What I paid originally for it.
• 5:20
  Fantastic.
• 5:21
  So Tracey from Wagga has a renovated property in Greece or
• 5:28
  had a renovated property in Greece.
• 5:30
  It's a, it's a beautiful story, Tracey, and you did that all
• 5:33
  yourself as a single lady travelling.
• 5:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
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  I joined expat groups when I was over there, when I was just holidaying.
• 5:43
  And then when I went back to, to try and find something I joined expat groups
• 5:48
  just, you know, for a bit of English.
• 5:51
  Yeah.
• 5:52
  Company, bit of company and yes.
• 5:55
  Yeah.
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  Found lots of contacts through those groups.
• 5:59
  And one of the people, he was an architect, so he basically took,
• 6:04
  did the project managing for me.
• 6:07
  Which is brilliant.
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  So were you over there when all the project managing was going
• 6:10
  on or were you here in Australia?
• 6:13
  No.
• 6:13
  I was staying there.
• 6:14
  Yeah.
• 6:15
  I think yeah, as I bought it, I, I moved into it.
• 6:19
  Yeah.
• 6:19
  And yeah, stayed there while I was renovating.
• 6:22
  So I did the painting and the gap filling and everything
• 6:26
  that I do here in Australia.
• 6:28
  Yeah.
• 6:28
  Yeah.
• 6:29
  And then I had yeah, electricians and plumbers cabinet maker.
• 6:34
  'cause there was, it was pretty rough.
• 6:37
  And so no kitchen to speak of, so had to put a kitchen in and
• 6:42
  yeah, get all the appliances.
• 6:43
  I didn't put a oven in just a little cooktop.
• 6:46
  But it did have a washing machine in there, so it was just, yeah.
• 6:50
  What what you use when you're staying in an Airbnb, pretty much.
• 6:54
  How did you even know what compliances were?
• 6:58
  How did you work it out?
• 7:00
  I, yeah, I left, I suppose that up to the to the project manager.
• 7:04
  Yeah.
• 7:04
  Yeah, he basically said what I could do, what I couldn't do which is fairly broad.
• 7:14
  Some, some overseas countries fairly broad with their regulations and with
• 7:18
  their work safety and work cover.
• 7:21
  Yeah.
• 7:21
  Yeah.
• 7:22
  Oh, funny.
• 7:22
  Not that that was just, yeah, just a standard little apartment.
• 7:27
  So the, the biggest thing I got in trouble for was making,
• 7:33
  making noise in siesta time.
• 7:39
  Which is every day, isn't it?
• 7:40
  Yeah.
• 7:40
  Yeah.
• 7:41
  Knock down.
• 7:42
  Oh my goodness.
• 7:42
  I can't remember the times, but it's like from two to four in the afternoon and I'd
• 7:47
  be banging away at something and I'd hear this shouting, but I couldn't understand
• 7:52
  it, so I just ignored it, kept going.
• 7:57
  All right.
• 7:58
  And how did you communicate with all of your tradies?
• 8:00
  Were they all English speaking?
• 8:02
  Or because there lots of
• 8:03
  No, no, not the tradies.
• 8:05
  The tradies didn't speak much English, my project manager did.
• 8:09
  Yeah, so I would either call him and then he would talk to the tradie on the phone.
• 8:15
  Or just hand signals, like lots of, it's like a game of charades.
• 8:19
  Yeah, it was very much charades.
• 8:21
  Yeah.
• 8:22
  Oh, I was telling you the story of, I pulled out the range hood.
• 8:28
  And the wires were still live and then I've, and then I've walked past it, but
• 8:34
  I don't do any of this stuff nowadays.
• 8:39
  I've walked past it with a ladder and it's tripped, tripped out the, the electricity.
• 8:46
  So the the electrician's come back and he was, yeah, he was quite mad at me
• 8:51
  for tripping it out and he was pointing at it and saying, no, he's going, no.
• 8:58
  Lucky you were wearing Aussie thongs.
• 9:00
  I get, I get that means don't, don't walk past the electricity with the ladder.
• 9:04
  Wear those rubber thongs.
• 9:06
  Yeah.
• 9:06
  Oh.
• 9:08
  So other than having a near death experience, did everything go all right?
• 9:14
  Yeah.
• 9:14
  Yeah.
• 9:15
  Done pretty good.
• 9:16
  I think when I came back home there was a little bit of a leak
• 9:21
  because the buildings are so old.
• 9:23
  Yeah.
• 9:25
  There was a little bit of a leak around the toilet.
• 9:27
  And that's probably the, the biggest problem there was really
• 9:32
  everything else was, yeah, went
• 9:36
  okay.
• 9:37
  And how did you know, like what colours to do and what style
• 9:40
  to do and how did you get your inspiration for your Greek apartment?
• 9:45
  It wasn't like, because you're in the city, it's not really the seaside blue.
• 9:51
  Yeah, it's not like the Greek islands with the white and the blue doors.
• 9:53
  Yeah.
• 9:54
  No, they do have a lot of the, there was the shutters were on the apartment.
• 9:58
  Yeah, because it had a little balcony as well.
• 10:01
  So those shutters were there, but they were fairly rotted,
• 10:04
  so they had to come off.
• 10:05
  But mostly it was just modern, just tidying it up and making it look modern.
• 10:11
  Was I didn't really, didn't really go with a theme or anything.
• 10:15
  It was just, just to make it look neat and tidy.
• 10:18
  Yeah, fix it up and Airbnb.
• 10:20
  Where did you buy all your furniture and bits and pieces for Airbnb?
• 10:24
  Oh yeah, there.
• 10:27
  Why do I think that's another funny story coming?
• 10:30
  Yeah, I would I would be seen walking through the streets, carrying a chair
• 10:34
  because of course I'm over there without a car, so the only way to get around, you
• 10:39
  know, walk or catch the train, the metro.
• 10:41
  And I did get on the metro with furniture as well.
• 10:45
  Yeah, so, they've got stores that are a bit like Bunnings, I suppose.
• 10:51
  Mix of Bunnings.
• 10:52
  Oh, Ikea.
• 10:53
  Actually I got most of my furniture from Ikea.
• 10:56
  Wow.
• 10:56
  Yeah.
• 10:56
  So they delivered the bed and the big things, fridge, things like that.
• 11:04
  Again.
• 11:05
  They'd ring me and be speaking in Greek and I, I didn't know what,
• 11:10
  when, when they were delivering.
• 11:13
  What time.
• 11:14
  So I'd have to run and run and find a friend and say, give them the phone and
• 11:19
  say, what's this person saying to me?
• 11:21
  Fridge is coming and I've got no idea when.
• 11:25
  Oh, that's the best.
• 11:26
  So.
• 11:30
  Thinking about this story, Tracey, and how well you do renovating in
• 11:33
  Australia right now in, you've done many renos there and now you are in Wagga.
• 11:38
  It's all about rolling with the punches and finding answers
• 11:41
  to the solutions at hand.
• 11:42
  So what a challenging project and a lot of fun.
• 11:46
  And I love the way you always find something to laugh at along the way.
• 11:49
  I think humour gets us a long way, especially when we've got something a
• 11:53
  little hurdle to jump, especially when we're nearly electrocuted ourselves.
• 11:58
  With the wires hanging out of rangehood.
• 12:01
  But yeah, good humor gets us a long way there.
• 12:03
  Is there anything that you enjoyed?
• 12:05
  Like what did you enjoy the most out of the experience?
• 12:10
  Yeah, getting it done, I suppose.
• 12:12
  Getting it done, getting over those hurdles of not speaking the language.
• 12:17
  And.
• 12:20
  Completing something that's, yeah.
• 12:22
  Not, not your usual.
• 12:25
  Yeah.
• 12:25
  Something out of the box.
• 12:27
  Yeah.
• 12:27
  Yeah.
• 12:27
  The challenge of it all while you're having a midlife crisis and, okay.
• 12:31
  So where did the money come from to do the renovation?
• 12:34
  Did you borrow from Australia to buy there?
• 12:37
  Yeah.
• 12:37
  It was just funny that I had, yeah.
• 12:39
  So cash here.
• 12:41
  Yeah, like it, it's not just going and renovating in place.
• 12:44
  You do have to do a lot of, a lot of other things, like I had to make a bank account.
• 12:49
  Yeah.
• 12:49
  And yeah, that wasn't easy be I had to just walk up and down the street, go
• 12:54
  into every bank ask whether they would whether I could make a bank account
• 12:58
  because not all the banks would allow me.
• 13:00
  Yeah.
• 13:01
  Oh, I had to get a tax file number.
• 13:03
  I was gonna say the tax return.
• 13:05
  Yeah, yeah,
• 13:06
  yeah.
• 13:06
  I had to get an accountant
• 13:08
  in Greece.
• 13:08
  So you've got a Greek, a Greek accountant, and then you've also got
• 13:12
  your Australian accountant who mm-hmm.
• 13:14
  And your Greek accounts get done separately.
• 13:17
  And then that gets mushed in with all of your figures here in
• 13:19
  Australia, which is what happens with me and my New Zealand properties.
• 13:23
  Pay pay the tax over there for Yeah.
• 13:25
  The income that's earned over there.
• 13:27
  Yeah.
• 13:27
  Yeah.
• 13:28
  And then then, then it gets put on my tax return here, here as well.
• 13:32
  And when you sold the property, was there capital gains and what happened with that?
• 13:37
  No, I don't, I don't think they have that.
• 13:40
  Over there?
• 13:41
  Not as far as I know.
• 13:42
  It was, went all through this through, I went through the system and solicit.
• 13:47
  No one pulled you up on it, so there we're done.
• 13:49
  No, no.
• 13:50
  Oh, that's fine.
• 13:51
  Yeah.
• 13:51
  A solicitor, that's another thing that I had to have as well.
• 13:54
  Yeah.
• 13:54
  Yeah, so I was, I was confident because there was all those people in place.
• 13:59
  All those people that are educated and have, know what they're doing.
• 14:04
  So I was confident that I was doing the right thing and I wasn't going to get
• 14:09
  pulled up at the border and told that.
• 14:11
  Yeah, yeah.
• 14:12
  I couldn't leave until I paid this amount of tax or something, I don't think.
• 14:16
  Yeah, fair enough.
• 14:17
  And equipment and all that kind of stuff while you did the renovation,
• 14:19
  just bought things along the fly while you were there and left them there?
• 14:22
  Or like, what, what did you do?
• 14:24
  Yeah.
• 14:24
  Yeah, I did.
• 14:25
  Yeah bought, there was a little shop, paint shop down the road, so I'd be
• 14:30
  toddling off down the road with a a bucket of paint you know, every couple of days.
• 14:35
  And they got to know you I bet.
• 14:36
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 14:38
  He would sort of hide under the bench every time I came in.
• 14:40
  I think
• 14:43
  that's best.
• 14:45
  Yeah.
• 14:45
  And then, yeah, get on the buses, on the tram train to get to Ikea or Praktiker.
• 14:52
  I think their Bunnings is called, you know, equivalent.
• 14:56
  And just, yeah, just buying little bits and pieces, door handles I had
• 15:00
  to buy and paint scrappers and yeah.
• 15:05
  Okay.
• 15:05
  What was the best part and what was the worst part?
• 15:08
  Go, best part first.
• 15:09
  What was the best part of doing what you did?
• 15:11
  To, to be over there, to be living over there.
• 15:14
  Yeah.
• 15:15
  Yeah.
• 15:16
  Worst part,
• 15:19
  that I can't live over there all the time.
• 15:22
  But you had to come back?
• 15:23
  Yeah.
• 15:25
  Oh, that's the best.
• 15:26
  And my, my daughters did say, do you think you'll be coming back one day?
• 15:31
  I've gotta come back.
• 15:32
  I've gotta come back.
• 15:34
  I actually yeah, got, I did push my luck right to the edge once, so I had, I think
• 15:41
  I had two days left on my visa, but yeah.
• 15:46
  So, yeah.
• 15:46
  But the security was going through counting all my days up very carefully.
• 15:52
  Yeah.
• 15:53
  'cause I knew I had two days, so.
• 15:55
  Yeah.
• 15:55
  Yeah.
• 15:55
  I didn't, I wasn't stressed about it.
• 15:57
  No.
• 15:58
  You'd done, you'd done your math first.
• 16:00
  Yeah.
• 16:00
  You kind of, you cut it fine.
• 16:01
  So you made sure you were accurate.
• 16:03
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:04
  Yeah.
• 16:04
  Oh, such a good story Trace.
• 16:05
  And that was like, I just wanted to stay there as long as possible to
• 16:08
  get as much finished as possible.
• 16:11
  Yeah.
• 16:12
  Would you do it again?
• 16:13
  Oh yeah, absolutely.
• 16:15
  And I'm, yeah, yeah, I'm actually looking.
• 16:18
  Yeah, that's the best.
• 16:19
  Okay.
• 16:20
  So would you do it there or somewhere else?
• 16:23
  Because I know the place well now.
• 16:25
  Yeah.
• 16:26
  Oh.
• 16:26
  Although I've forgotten a lot because it was a while ago.
• 16:29
  Yeah.
• 16:31
  Yeah, probably, probably would go back to Athens.
• 16:34
  Yeah.
• 16:34
  Yeah.
• 16:34
  Because you'd feel like you were, you'd have some confidence around purchasing.
• 16:38
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:39
  Mm-hmm.
• 16:40
  Yeah.
• 16:40
  And, and sight unseen.
• 16:41
  Would you purchase there sight unseen?
• 16:44
  Have you got contacts there still at the moment?
• 16:46
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 16:47
  Yeah.
• 16:47
  Yeah , I was there at the end of last year and I did go with an agent around
• 16:53
  to a few properties and had a look.
• 16:55
  So yeah, I would contact her.
• 16:57
  And did you tell the, did you tell your daughters.
• 17:00
  Yeah.
• 17:01
  Yeah, I know, I knew you were looking?
• 17:03
  How funny.
• 17:04
  Yeah.
• 17:05
  Live is an adventure.
• 17:06
  Thank you so much, Tracey.
• 17:08
  If, if, if you had one little piece of advice to give to somebody who
• 17:13
  was thinking about doing one of these homes, whether it be in Italy,
• 17:17
  France, or Greece, what would you say?
• 17:21
  Definitely give it a go if that's what you really wanna do.
• 17:24
  Yeah.
• 17:25
  It's, yeah, you've, it's not, it's not just walk in and
• 17:29
  renovate and walk back out again.
• 17:30
  Yeah, there's lots of, do your, do your homework, find out what they
• 17:36
  need you to do before you buy it.
• 17:39
  Yeah, and I would, I would assume that you'd have to get tax file
• 17:43
  numbers and things like that in any country to own property.
• 17:46
  Did you feel like they were being dodgy over there or did you feel safe
• 17:49
  with all the transactions and stuff?
• 17:51
  Yeah, I did feel safe.
• 17:53
  Yeah.
• 17:53
  Yeah.
• 17:53
  There's so ish, you've gotta, you've gotta realise that there is
• 17:59
  an element of that all the time.
• 18:01
  Yeah, yeah.
• 18:01
  Just don't be naive, I suppose.
• 18:03
  Yeah, fair enough.
• 18:04
  But you also have to trust and, which I did trust a lot of people.
• 18:08
  Yeah.
• 18:09
  Which look back, if it had gone wrong, wrong, I would've gone, oh, that was
• 18:13
  really stupid, but it didn't go wrong.
• 18:15
  So there you go.
• 18:15
  But it didn't go wrong.
• 18:17
  Yeah.
• 18:17
  It's the same here, though.
• 18:18
  Don't you reckon?
• 18:19
  Oh, absolutely.
• 18:20
  Yeah, yeah, yeah.
• 18:22
  The people I picked, yeah, we're great people and are still my friends, so
• 18:26
  Oh, so nice.
• 18:27
  What an adventure.
• 18:28
  You only live once.
• 18:29
  There you go.
• 18:30
  That's it.
• 18:31
  Definitely.
• 18:32
  Yes.
• 18:32
  Yeah.
• 18:32
  Mm-hmm.
• 18:33
  If anybody wants to work with Tracey here, Tracey does joint ventures.
• 18:37
  She's always open to working with people either as a renovator and or if anybody
• 18:44
  wants to be a money partner for Tracey.
• 18:45
  She's an experienced renovator.
• 18:47
  One of my favorite ladies, and you can find Tracey at Old 2 New
• 18:51
  House Transformations on Instagram.
• 18:54
  So when I say Old 2 New, old, two, the number two, New House
• 18:59
  Transformations is her Instagram handle.
• 19:02
  Once you get onto Instagram, you'll see the linktree and you can click through
• 19:05
  to Tracey there via the linktree, or you can send her an email at
• 19:10
  Ellis, E-LL-I-S family05@bigpond.com.
• 19:16
  Did I get that right?
• 19:17
  Yeah.
• 19:18
  Oh, perfect.
• 19:18
  That's all good.
• 19:19
  Yeah.
• 19:19
  Mm-hmm.
• 19:20
  Thanks, Tracey.
• 19:21
  Or if you can't find Tracey, call me and I'll put you in touch.
• 19:24
  So, beautiful.
• 19:24
  Thanks so much for sharing that story, Tracey.
• 19:26
  Yeah.
• 19:26
  More than more than willing to go overseas and renovate your property anywhere.
• 19:31
  Anywhere in the world.
• 19:32
  Yeah, anywhere.
• 19:33
  Well, honestly, the beauty is, and the underlying message is you can
• 19:36
  take this business and your knowledge of how to put a reno together.
• 19:40
  You can take it anywhere, so, yeah.
• 19:42
  Yeah.
• 19:42
  One of my favorite things about it.
• 19:44
  Yes.
• 19:44
  Yeah.
• 19:46
  Mine too, except I seem to stay put, but I'm less adventurous than you are, Tracey.
• 19:53
  All right.
• 19:53
  Thanks so much.
• 19:55
  Thank you.