"I'm sure that's the same woman we met at our house," Seth said as he slowly parked up behind the silver Mercedes belonging to the real estate agent they had come to meet.
"Yeah, I recognise her," Bayley said cheerfully from the passenger seat. "I think her name was Liza, if I remember correctly."
"Yeah, I think you might be right," Seth said thoughtfully. He killed the engine and they got out of the car. They had only driven a couple of miles from home. Buying somewhere relatively local to them made a lot of sense.
The agent had been standing beside the car while she waited for them to arrive, wearing a well-tailored light grey business suit. She had started walking over towards them as soon as Seth had pulled the car up to the curb. "Morning," she said with a professional but genuinely warm smile. "I believe we've met before. Seth and Bayley, right? I'm Liza."
"We remember you," Bayley assured her with a broad smile, shaking hands. "You showed us around our house."
Liza correctly recalled the name of the street they lived on. Seth had to wonder if she had looked it up on some computer system ahead of time. Either way, he offered his hand and smiled. "Good to see you again."
"On the move already?" Liza enquired after the handshake, turning her attention to the two storey house that she was about to show them around.
"No. This one is going to be a business venture. We're looking for somewhere to buy and renovate."
"Before selling for a profit," Liza added, nodding her understanding.
"In an ideal world, yeah," Bayley grinned.
On the way up the short driveway, Liza reminded them of the particulars of the property, along with its guide price at the auction that was to take place the following week. The reminders were unnecessary, for Bayley had already noted them down on the first page of the notepad she had brought with her. She felt like a professional property developer for the first time, showing up prepared for the viewing and ready to make notes about what work the house would need to bring it up to scratch for selling on. Seth had enough knowledge to take a guess at what any of the costs involved might be, and from there they could work out what their total spend on the project would be, and offset that against what the fully renovated property should be worth on the market.
"We'll have a look around by ourselves if that's okay?" Seth asked Liza after she opened the front door for them.
"Absolutely. Here are the keys so you can let yourselves out into the garden if you wish. I'll be in the car when you're done."
Seth thanked her, then led Bayley inside the house. "It looked okay from the outside, right?" she asked. "I couldn't see any damage on the roof. There were no broken tiles or anything. Front garden needs some TLC, but that's not a problem. The driveway doesn't need any work." She made a note of it on her pad.
Stopping just inside the hallway, Seth turned and looked at her, a big smile on his face.
"What?" she asked self-consciously.
"I just love you, that's all," he said, giving her a peck on the lips.
Bayley's cheeks warmed up a little bit. "I love you too. But what made you say that?"
"I'm proud. Seeing you knowing what to look for, making notes on it, and thinking about the things you know how to do now, I find it adorable."
"Well, I learned it all from you," she said sweetly. "We'd better start looking around, baby."
"You're right," he agreed. With that, they got down to business. "Before we do, you're right, the outside looks good, apart from the garden. Now, I smell damp from somewhere," was his first observation.
"Yeah, me too," Bayley said. She looked down the hallway, then up the staircase, the bottom of which was near to the front door. Whoever had owned the house last had taken up all of the carpets and flooring, leaving the bare concrete floor and wooden staircase. "The stairs look in good condition," she commented.
"No need to replace the staircase," he confirmed. "Remember the state ours was in?"
"Yeah," she chuckled as she made another note on her pad. The staircase in their house had been rotting when they bought the place, thanks to a leaky roof that had allowed water to do serious damage to the house. They had ripped out the ruined staircase and replaced it with a marble one that was now the centrepiece of their beautiful home. Bayley still felt immensely proud of it every time she set eyes on it.
But that kind of lavish spending wasn't going to be the order of the day here. The objective was to bring the house up to a finished standard that buyers would pay good money for, without having to spend a huge amount in the process. At the end of the day, while they wanted to enjoy doing the work together, profit was the name of the game.
"Found the damp," Seth reported. He had just walked through the first door on the left side of the hallway.
Bayley followed him, entering what would be a living room if there was any furniture in it. It was currently stripped totally bare, even of flooring and plaster on the walls. Low down in the far corner, near the window that looked out over the front garden, there was a large patch of green mould on the wall, indicating a damp problem. "Oh, what's causing that?" she asked, realising that it obviously wasn't the roof leaking as had been the case in their house.
"Bad installation of the damp proofing, most likely," Seth said, crouching down to get a better look at the damp. He briefly explained how the problem could be resolved by injecting silicone-based liquid into the wall from the outside, and told her how much to put down on the notepad for a cost.
"I don't understand why it's been left the way it has," Bayley said, looking around at the walls. "It's like someone bought it and started work, then gave up."
"Maybe that is what happened?" he replied with a shrug. "Who knows? What matters is they've already taken up the flooring and stripped the plaster. Two big jobs we won't have to do."
"True," Bayley nodded. They went back out into the hallway, then through to another totally empty room that was adjacent to the living room. It was in a similar condition, even with damp under the window again.
"Perfect size for a dining room," Seth observed. "We could even consider knocking through that wall to make one large dining and living area."
"Oh, maybe!" Bayley exclaimed excitedly. "I was thinking that these rooms might look a bit small when they were furnished. It's kind of hard to tell when they're totally empty."
"You're right," Seth said, again feeling proud of her insight. She really had taken in everything he had taught her about property and DIY, and more besides. "Damp, again," he said, pointing. "Double that damp proof budget, Bay. We'll have to do the whole house."
"Alright. How much shall I allow for plastering, flooring and decoration?"
"Let's look around the rest of the house first and see how much of it we have to do."
With that, Seth led the way out of the room and walked the short distance to the end of the hallway, heading through an open door into the kitchen.
"Well, that's all going to have to come out," Bayley said as she followed behind him. She was referring to the dated kitchen units and work surfaces. They looked like they were at least twenty years old, probably more.
"Yeah, but the room isn't a bad size. Not enough space to put an island in, but this is a smaller house than ours anyway."
Again, the flooring had been taken up and the plaster removed from the walls. There were also no light fittings in the ceiling. Loose wires dangled from the holes where they had been.
"We should put something in the budget for someone to check out the wiring and the plumbing," Bayley suggested. Those expert trades were things they wouldn't get involved in.
Seth nodded and gave her a figure to write down. Having wandered over to the far end of the kitchen, he looked out of the window at the garden. "Lots of work to be done out there," he said.
"Let's go out and have a look," Bayley said, waiting by the back door.
Seth walked over with the keys and unlocked the cheap-looking UPVC door. He asked Bayley to write down an amount for replacing it with something better, then they walked out into the garden. A paved area led up the side of the house towards what had presumably been a lawn at some point. Now it was a catastrophic mess of chest high weeds and other plants.
"Oh, man," Bayley muttered, seeing what a task it was going to be to deal with the mess and make the garden presentable.
"I guess it's a good thing you've been getting into gardening," Seth said with a thin smile on his face. "But on the plus side, a garden in this state really drives down the value of the house, partially explaining why the auction price is low."
"Okay, well I'll take on this mess," Bayley said. It's impossible to even see how long the garden is, or what's in it!"
"That'll be part of the fun," Seth grinned. "Who knows what you might find?"
They headed back into the house and up the stairs. The landing and the three bedrooms were unremarkable, in a similar state to the rooms downstairs with no flooring or plaster.
"Are we going to do all of this plastering ourselves?" Bayley asked.
"Yeah," Seth said, putting an arm around her shoulders. "Like I said the other day, there's no rush to get the job finished. And what's the point paying people to do jobs we can do ourselves?"
"I'll need you to teach me how to do it again. I never really got the hang of it at our place."
"You did just fine. But sure, I'll show you again."
"Yay!" Bayley said sweetly, stretching up for a kiss.
In that moment, as their lips touched, Seth found himself wondering how he had found himself a girl who was perfect in every way imaginable. He really was a lucky son of a bitch, he thought with a contented smile.
"Bathroom next?" Bayley said unnecessarily, since it was the only room left for them to check out.
Seth gestured for her to leave the bedroom they were standing in. "After you."
Bayley went through to the bathroom, sounding unsurprised by what she found. "This has seen better days, Seth. I'm thinking complete replacement?"
Walking in behind her, Seth cringed. The bathroom suite was very dated, and even if it hadn't been, he couldn't have accepted the vile beige colour of it. "What a horrid colour. Why would someone have bought that? Yes, definitely needs replacing." He added a figure for the job.
"Okay then, are we happy that's everything?" Bayley asked, drawing a line under her note about a complete new bathroom suite.
"Yeah, that'll pretty much do it." He added a few figures for remaining items, and an estimated total for what the plastering and flooring would cost them.
Bayley took a minute to add up all of the figures she had written down. When she was done, she showed him the total. "That's not bad, is it?" she ventured.
"Not at all," Seth said, nodding his satisfaction. "And there's nothing here that can't be fixed relatively easily with time and hard work. I say we go for it, if we can get it for a decent price at the auction."
"Me too! I really hope we get it," Bayley squeaked, almost bouncing up and down in excitement.
A/N: Thank you everyone who left reviews last time!
Seth and Bayley have their next investment lined up. I got a lot of requests and positive comments about the renovation aspect of The New Authority. You wanted me to write more chapters like it, so I hope you enjoyed this one?
Next time, it's Hell in a Cell, where we have Bayley and Alexa taking on Sonya and Mandy for the Tag Team Championships. For the prediction question, leave the names of the team you think are going to win in a review. As always, I'll shout out anyone who predicts correctly.