A guide to renovating your home affordably & quickly

It is a fact that in recent years people have turned to buying and renovating older properties. Building activity from 2010 until today (during the economic crisis) fell sharply. Banks are not granting new mortgages for buying new homes and apartments. As a result there are no prospective buyers, and so new buildings are not being built.

But let's start from the beginning:

Real-estate investment in the decades before the crisis boomed, pushing home-ownership rates in Greece to very high levels (relevant research and reports are published by the Hellenic Statistical Authority), with Greece overtaking countries such as Germany, France, etc. Because of the recession, however, and the high taxation of Greek households, the share of individuals investing in this sector was almost zero. During the crisis, though, new opportunities emerged in the market, especially for older properties. There was a significant rise in sales of older properties, with their new owners renovating them in order to double their value.

Besides investment, a very large share of owners of older apartments use them as their permanent home and want to renovate them to improve their look and make living in them easier.

Before starting a home renovation, however, you need to decide whether it will be partial or full – and even whether you will work on the inside or the outside. By "partial" we mean renovating just one or a few rooms (bathroom, kitchen, living room or bedroom). By "full", we mean radically changing the layout and installations of the home.

For example, inside a home the following works can be carried out:

• Demolition of walls and plaster
• Removal of floors (tiles or wooden floors), wooden kitchen cabinets, interior doors and M&E installations (plumbing and electrical)
• Debris removal with skips
• Cleaning of the site
• Building new brick walls
• Structural repairs and strengthening of the building's load-bearing frame after wear, defects or damage
• New plastering
• Laying new floors
• Replacing external window frames
• Replacing the front door
• Building wooden kitchen cabinets
• Painting the walls.

On the outside of the property, the works that can be carried out are:

• Replacing the render and painting the façades, with or without scaffolding
• Landscaping the surrounding area and building a swimming pool
• External thermal insulation and waterproofing of the roof.

Before starting your home renovation, you should set your available budget from the outset and stick to it. Without a study, design and an organised plan for how the building works will proceed, costs can rise – by as much as 25–30%. An engineer can help the owner a great deal: they recommend the right materials and crews and coordinate all the works, so that the final cost and schedule are met.