15 Aug We go shopping for bargains with Cherie Barber
Cherie Barber – the Renovation Queen – tells us where she goes shopping for the best deals on the bits and pieces she uses in her television renovations.
Transcript :
Kevin: Some great news for you today. The Powerhouses of Property Tour is on around Australia right now, and heading it up is Cherie Barber, who joins me as our guest, the Queen of Renovation.
Good day, Cherie. How are you doing?
Cherie: Really well. Thank you, Kevin.
Kevin: Good. Now, tell me about the tour: who can we see, and what can we expect to see there?
Cherie: Okay. Two speakers, myself teaching people how to do low-budget, quick cosmetic renovations, how to get in and spruce up a property and not spend too much money but massively uplift the value of the property.
I also tour with a lovely lady called Dominique Grubisa. Dominique is one of Australia’s top asset protection and debt specialists, and what she’s going to teach people is how to protect their property assets that they have in their personal name.
Let’s face it; we live in an age where people can sue people. She’s going to show people how to protect their assets moving forward without having to take those properties out and put them into other complex trust structures.
Kevin: Yes, it’s an unfortunate part of what we’re going through right now, but you have to really protect yourself, so that’s some great advice.
How can we get some detail about when and where it’s all on, Cherie?
Cherie: For people who are interested in coming, it’s a free master class, a one-day master class. I’m on stage for about 2½ hours, as is Dominique. All they have to do is jump on my website, RenovatingForProfit.com.au, and they can register for their free ticket.
Kevin: Okay, so go ahead and do that.
Hey, Cherie, just on another point, I saw you recently on Sky TV, their real estate show, talking about places to go to get cheaper or more affordable renovation material. Tell me about that.
Cherie: Okay, yes. It seems these days that everybody is renovating on a budget. Let’s face it; most Australians don’t have $50,000 sitting in their bank account, so more and more people are having to do budget renovations these days. It’s just a fact of life.
There’s a heap of ways that you can get your renovation fixtures and fittings on the cheap. One of the strongest ways is traditionally not going into a retail store. When you go into a retail store, those companies have big overheads called rent, so a lot of people these days are jumping online. They’re jumping online to sites like eBay.com.au, Gumtree. I buy an incredible amount of good-quality, secondhand materials on those sites for a fraction of the price.
There are other sites where they have dedicated websites just for one type of product. For example, a great website at the moment is called SecondhandKitchens.com.au. Kevin, if you jump on that website, you can go get yourself a great secondhand kitchen that in some cases still looks brand new for $1000 to $2000.
Kevin: Wow. Yeah, I’ve heard of a number of people doing that. It is amazing what some people will actually not have any use for anymore and are quite prepared to sell it at a very low price, Cherie.
Cherie: What happens is people buy a house and they move in, and they go, “Oh, I don’t like that kitchen. I don’t like the kitchen cabinet color. I don’t like the benchtop.” So, what they often do is actually rip it out, and more often than not, it ends up in a skip bin.
But the smart people actually put those secondhand kitchens and other secondhand items… Things like doors, old shade pergola systems, lots of that sort of stuff can go online. Why pay retail price if you don’t have to?
Kevin: Okay. Just quickly, run me through some of those websites again. I know Gumtree. There was another one you said. Was it SecondhandKitchens.com.au?
Cherie: eBay, you have Gumtree, you have a great website called Renovator Auctions. I buy floorboards on that website for $1 a lineal meter, for example. There are other websites, such as eGarageSales.com.au. It’s like an online garage sale site, and again, people stick everything on there: renovation materials, secondhand furniture that you can easily trick up and repurpose.
There’s a stack of websites; renovationd.com.au is another great one. One of the ones I really love, believe it or not – I’m sounding like a real cheapskate here, Kevin – Salvos.org.au. Particularly for TV renovations, I’m always on a budget, and the first place I head to is the Salvos. You find incredible secondhand furniture that through a lick of specialty paint, you can trick up and make it look brand new for a sliver of the cost of retail.
Kevin: Yeah, and you’re supporting a great organization too, the Salvo. There was another one mentioned. Was it SecondhandKitchens.com.au? Was that what it was called?
Cherie: SecondhandKitchens.com.au. There are a lot of auction sites, places like Sal’s Auctions. What are some others?
Kevin: You could do a lot worse than actually going and Googling that too, couldn’t you? You’d probably have them all pop up then.
Cherie: Yeah. What you do is you just Google “cheap reno fixtures and fittings,” and a lot of those websites come up. You just have to know where to look. Unfortunately, most people just think “I have to go to the shop.” When you go and you walk into a retail store, you’re going to be paying full retail price.
Kevin: Yes, absolutely. Some great advice there from Cherie Barber. Don’t forget about The Powerhouses of Property Tour. Go to Cherie’s website, which we’ll have a link to in this transcript as well of this interview. Make sure you go and check that out for yourself.
Cherie, great talking to you. Talk again soon.
Cherie: Thank you, Kevin.
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