Why renovation budgets fail

How we work

Cost it properly, then decide

A renovation budget set by walking a property and estimating is a wish. The real figure appears when trades price the actual scope and someone has looked behind the drywall at the parts that decide everything — the roof deck, the panel, the supply lines.

Contingency is the second failure. Ten per cent applied out of habit to a 1960s block house with original plumbing is not a contingency, it is a rounding error. The allowance should reflect the age and the unknowns of that specific building.

And permits are where short-term thinking costs most. Skipping them saves weeks and surfaces years later in a title search or an inspection, as somebody else's problem and the seller's liability. Pulling them, attending the inspections and closing them out is the cheap version of that decision.