Universal Design Renovations

For months Desiree and I have been researching names for our project. We have printed out reams of suggestions and finally I think that we have come to a concensus.

Bimbadeen

This is an Australian Aboriginal word that means good views. There does not seem to be any other tourist accommodations called Bimbadeen in the South Coast of New South Wales. I am trying to find a word to associate with Bimbadeen so that we can register the name. Any suggestions?

I managed to score a meeting with the State Government representative for the area Andrew Constance. I am lucky that Andrew is also the Shadow Minister for Ageing and Disabilities so he was keen to hear what we were doing. He also arranged a meeting with the Mayor of Bega Tony Allen who was recently returned to the position.

The results of the meeting were that they would provide letters of support for the Universal Design project as they can see that there is a need for such a facillity on the far south coast of New South Wales. They also put me in contact with the Bega Valley Respite service who would like to use the facillity in the future.

Looks like we are off to a good start. To review the letters click on the links below.

Andrew Constance Support letter

Bega Valley Respite Service Support letter

Now that we have some sort of time line on the Imlay street Universal Design project I can start to increase the equipment collection program. I have been scouring eBay for all types of stuff.

I have managed to get so far:

Montana Scooter

This is supposed to be the Rolls Royce of scooters. It is made in China but has been designed by an Australian company called Lotus-Blake The scooter has 4 coil independant suspension for a super smooth ride and is powered by a 36 volt motor, which gives it a heap of grunt. For more details on the specifications for the Montana scooter click here.

The unit that I picked up from eBay was almost new (They sell for $5,500 Aud) The previous owners family just wanted to get some space back so were willing to part with the unit for $2,400. We will use the scooter for ourselves and for guests who come to stay, saving them the trouble of transporting their own scooter.

Promed – Elf Patient Lifter

This unit came from a family whose father had MS for many years, but unfortunenately had become so disabled he needed to go into a nursing home. I saw the unit on eBay, it came with three additional batteries, one of which was almost new and sling. It can lift up to 127 kg and is very manouvreable. The unit had been purchased for $2,030 some 5 years ago. The owners and I came to a deal where I paid $750 for the lot.

Hopefully I can build up a “library” of equipment that is hard to transport, so that guests to our facillity will not have to worry about logistics that resemble “moving the seventh fleet”.

Now that we have secured the property in Imlay Street Merimbula we need to put together a design brief for an architect. This will off course need to take into account the principles of Universal Design.
After doing a significant amount of research we have put together a design brief that we can use as a starting point and a discussion paper with prospective architects.

If you want to download our brief for free here it is.

Merimbula Universal Design Architects Brief

I hope that this will provide food for thought for anyone who is doing a project similar to ours.

The vendor of the house in Imlay Street has accepted our offer so now we are about to start to renovate the place to take advantage of the spectacular views.

We will convert the place into a dual occupancy so that we can let the lower floor out people who have access issues and want to have a vacation or holiday in Merimbula. Of course we will use the principles of Universal Design to ensure access for all.

The next step will be to write up a specification and to find an architect who is familiar with Universal Design.

Part of our investment process was to enlist the services of a local valuer in Mermbula to inspect any prospective purchase. To ensure that we had a consistent approach we developed an Inspection Checklist for the valuer to use. This covered all of the key points we wanted inspected.

The inspection for 7 Imlay Street came back with what we expected, basically the worst house in one of the best streets with some great views. We expect to have to make some significant changes to the property to renovate it using the principals of Universal Design, so being a substantial “Fixer Upperer” does not really worry Desiree and I.

The property was recently “sold” but the sale did not complete due to the purchaser not being able to raise the finance. We want to get the property off the market fairly quickly as we believe that it represents great value in todays market. Consequently we have drafted up a letter of offer (Imlay Street Offer) which we send off tommorrow.

After months of searching and looking at hundreds of places we have finally found a blank canvas on which we are willing to make an offer. It is really the classic worst house in the best street situation.

Here is a picture of the place.

The story goes that the place was built as a holiday shack in the early 1970′s. Over the last 10 years   it has fallen into disrepair and has been on the rental market for a long time. The last tennant is apparently now in the care of the prison system after a run in with drug dealing.

I guess that you could not get much more down than that. The landlord has decided to chuck it all in and has put the property on the market.

So what is the attraction? Well it is situated right on top of the hill in Merimbula and has some great ocean and lake views.

It also has some great views out the back to the mountains in the hinterland. With a lot of tender loving care this property could be made into something.

We are about to put an offer to the owner.

I ended up buying the Sommersoft “Propery Investment Analysis” software package.

I must say that I am impressed with the ease of use and the types of reports that it produces. This is going to make the evaluation of investment property decisions less stressful.

Here is a sample of one of the reports that I produced in less than 30 minutes. Investment Report 25 Kowara Crescent

I have spent the last few weeks searching through libraries and book stores for anything to do with property investment. There is a huge amount that is available. I have however decided to buy a book “More Wealth from Residential Property” by Jan Somers. Jan is a resident of Queensland who has made a substantial amount from investing in residential property. What also attracted me to her book is that her husband Ian has put together a software program “Property Investment Analysis” that is particularly relevent to investing in residential property in Australia. There is a website associated with their  program and philosophy.

I intend to buy this program and use it to evaluate my investment property choices.

Well the advert in the paper sure started to work. I had at least four calls from people who were willing to be my eyes and ears on the ground. There were builders, valuers and even a retired bank manager. As yet I have not chosen anyone as the advert still has a few weeks to run. I am considering building a list and then choosing the best candidate.

In the meantime I tracked down a real estate data base that had all of the property sales in Merimbula for the last few years listed. If you are interested in looking at this click here Merimbula Property Prices

It feels like I am starting to make some headway with the project. At least now I have a stream of data that I can start to use to evaluate proposed prices.