How Much Do Pre-Sale Renovations Cost in Canberra?

For most Canberra homes, a cosmetic pre-sale refresh costs roughly $20,000 to $40,000 (excluding GST), and most land between $25,000 and $35,000. That covers paint, flooring, lighting, window treatments, minor repairs and a garden tidy-up. Adding a kitchen or bathroom facelift adds roughly $10,000 to $14,000 each. Replacing them outright adds, on average, around $45,000 for a new kitchen and $32,000 for a new bathroom. Those are real figures from our recent Canberra projects, and this guide breaks them down so you can see where your home might sit.

They're a guide, not a quote. Where your home sits within each range depends mainly on its size and condition: the state of the walls, ceilings, floors and garden, and what turns up once work starts. We explain exactly what moves the number below. The aim here is to give you realistic numbers to plan with, and to help you decide what's worth spending, because the most expensive pre-sale renovation is the one that doesn't come back to you at sale.

What pre-sale renovations cost: the building blocks

Most pre-sale renovations are a combination of a few building blocks. Here's what each typically costs on our Canberra projects:

Cosmetic refresh: around $20,000 to $40,000

Paint, flooring, lighting, window treatments, minor repairs and gardening across the whole house. Most homes come in between $25,000 and $35,000. A smaller home with sound walls, ceilings and floors sits towards the lower end; a larger home, or one with cracked or stained walls, worn floors or an overgrown garden, sits towards the top. See where your home will sit below. This is usually the highest-value spend, because it lifts every room buyers walk through. See which renovations tend to add value.

Kitchen: facelift around $12,000 to $14,000, new kitchen around $45,000

A kitchen facelift includes new stone benchtops and splashback, painted cabinets, new handles, and a new sink and tapware. It typically costs $12,000 to $14,000 depending on size, and keeps the existing layout and cabinet boxes. A completely new kitchen for a pre-sale renovation costs around $45,000 on average, and a larger or higher-spec kitchen can cost a lot more. If the existing cabinetry is sound, the facelift often gives most of the visual impact for a fraction of the price. Our kitchen ROI guide goes deeper.

Bathroom: facelift around $10,000 to $12,000, new bathroom around $32,000

A bathroom facelift typically costs $10,000 to $12,000 depending on size. A new bathroom costs around $32,000 on average, and more for larger rooms or premium fittings. As with kitchens, the gap between the two is large, so it's worth being honest about whether the bathroom is dated, which a facelift can fix, or failing, such as leaks, waterproofing problems or cracked tiles, which usually means replacing it.

Laundry: refresh around $6,000 to $7,000, new laundry around $11,000 to $12,000

Laundries are one of the cheaper rooms to update, and moving the plumbing adds around $2,500. Flooring is extra. See our laundry renovations page for the detail.

Opening up the layout: from around $1,500 a wall

Changing the layout doesn't have to be expensive if the walls aren't structural. Removing a non-load-bearing wall typically costs around $1,500 per wall, including disposal and patching the plasterboard, and the area then needs repainting. Building a new non-structural wall typically costs around $2,000, depending on its size. Structural changes are a different matter: they need a licensed builder, often an engineer and building approval, so they're quoted individually. Our guide Do I need building approval to renovate in the ACT? explains where the line falls.

Where will your home sit in these ranges?

The ranges are wide because Canberra homes are so different. Two houses with the same number of bedrooms can need very different amounts of work. Where yours lands comes down to a handful of things we look at on every assessment:

• Size of the house. More rooms means more wall and ceiling area to paint, more square metres of flooring, more windows to dress and usually more garden. A compact three-bedroom home sits towards the lower end; a large four- or five-bedroom home with multiple living areas sits towards the top.
• Condition of the walls and ceilings. Sound walls need light preparation and two coats. Cracks, holes, water stains, peeling paint, old patch repairs, smoke or nicotine staining, or dark feature colours that need extra coats to cover all add labour and push the cost up.
• Condition of the floors. Existing timber boards that can be sanded and polished cost far less than replacing everything. Uneven, damaged or water-affected subfloors need preparation before new flooring goes down.
• Repairs. Sticking or damaged doors, broken fittings, rot, leaks and anything a building inspector is likely to flag are best fixed before sale, and they add to the total.
• The garden. A tidy-up, mulch and fresh edges is very different from clearing an overgrown block, removing rubbish or dealing with dead trees.
• Kitchens and bathrooms. Their size, whether the existing cabinets are sound enough to paint or are swollen and damaged, the length of benchtop, and, in bathrooms, whether the waterproofing is still sound. These decide whether a facelift will do or the room needs replacing.

As a rule of thumb, a smaller home in sound condition will sit near the bottom of each range, and a larger home, or one needing repairs, will sit near the top. That's why we always assess a home in person before giving a figure.

A worked example

To show how the building blocks add up, here's an illustrative example rather than a quote. Take a typical three-bedroom Canberra home in tired but sound condition. A cosmetic refresh at around $30,000, a kitchen facelift at around $13,000 and a bathroom facelift at around $11,000 come to roughly $54,000. Replace both the kitchen and bathroom instead of refreshing them, and the same house comes to roughly $107,000. That's double, for a result buyers may or may not value more in your suburb. This is exactly why we look at each room on its merits rather than renovating everything.

What makes costs go up

• Size. More rooms means more paint, flooring and window treatments.
• Condition. Repairs, water damage, rot or anything hidden behind walls and under floors adds cost. Older Canberra homes may also need asbestos testing before work.
• Replacing rather than refreshing. As the figures above show, new kitchens and bathrooms cost roughly three times as much as a good facelift.
• Moving things. Relocating plumbing, kitchens or walls adds trades, time and sometimes approvals.
• Structural work and approvals. Anything needing building approval adds engineering, certification and time.

The real question isn't cost, it's return

The number that matters is what the work adds to your sale compared with what it costs. Nobody can honestly promise a fixed return, because it depends on your home, your suburb and the market on the day. What we can say is that strategic spend in the right areas, usually presentation first, gives you the best chance of coming out ahead. Spending past your suburb's realistic ceiling price usually doesn't. Overcapitalising is the most common and expensive mistake we see, and we cover it in renovating-for-profit mistakes to avoid. You can see the scope of real past projects in our projects.

When not to spend

Sometimes the right answer is to spend very little, or nothing. If your home is already well presented, a clean, minor repairs and good styling may be all it needs. If the house is likely to be bought as a knock-down or a major renovation project, buyers will pay for the land and the potential, not your new kitchen. And if you can't afford the work without stretching yourself, it isn't worth the risk. We weigh this up in should you sell as-is or renovate? A good renovator will tell you when spending less is the smarter move.

How we quote

We start with a free, no-obligation assessment of your home and your goal. From there, you get a clear, itemised proposal covering scope, cost and timeline before you commit, so you can decide with full information. There are no hidden fees and no pressure. Book a free consultation to get a real figure for your home.

Figures are a guide based on our recent Canberra projects (2026), exclude GST, and are not a quote. Your cost depends on your home's size, condition and finishes.